


Ramblings of a Lunatic

by jungkooksfic



Series: Polaroids, Books, and Way Too Much Kissing [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Gay, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, No Smut, Oblivious GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28230414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jungkooksfic/pseuds/jungkooksfic
Summary: Clay was trying to escape New York City and all of its craziness during the bustling Christmas season by venturing into his favorite bookstore.And then he saw it: the misplaced yellow notebook, and the mystery writer within it.He would discover after something of a scavenger hunt that he was in love with the writer of the notebook who might be a little more familiar than he thinks.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Polaroids, Books, and Way Too Much Kissing [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082060
Comments: 131
Kudos: 577





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello-hello!
> 
> This work is a crossover of the series "Dash and Lily" on Netflix (it's so good oh my GOD please go watch it!!). You don't need to watch it in order to understand the events of this story, and I will be putting plenty of twist on this so if you have seen the show already, don't worry, it won't spoil the contents of my story.
> 
> As far as I know, George and Dream haven't stated any discomfort with the act of people shipping them (they actually read Heat Waves lmaoooo). But, if either of them even hint that they aren't okay with it and this story is still up, PLEASE let me know. Feel free to spam the comments, and I'll take it down immediately.
> 
> Without further ado, here's my chaotic first chapter.

**_Clay_ **

It was snowing. It was cold. And Clay wanted to fucking _die._

Here’s the thing. Florida might be the butt of everyone’s jokes ranging from the infamous Florida Man memes to anyone’s reluctance to so much as get within a two-state perimeter of the elongated piece of crocodile-invested land, but at least it wasn’t absolutely miserable in the winter time like it was in New York. Even if the tall buildings and all of the dreams they inhabited had their charm, they hardly made up for the fact that Clay had had a runny nose for six solid weeks and the tip of his nose seemed to be permanently red from the never-ending cold that never escaped from his bones.

Christmas in New York is singlehandedly the craziest time of the year. People bustle around the streets like scurrying ants with flakes of snow in their hair as the scuttle along to their individual tasks in their very separate lives only connected by a single, gigantic city. Carolers take up space in front of subway entrances as they belt out the same carols that have been sung for decades and, in some cases, centuries.

There were pros to being in New York for Christmas. For instance, all the coffee shops had peppermint-flavored mochas and some stores passed out free hot chocolate samples.

But the cons _far_ outweighed the pros.

At least, according to Clay.

Clay couldn’t walk up from the subway without slamming into some over-enthusiastic singers that had _clearly_ had too much eggnog to stay on tempo with their terrible rendition of “Carol of the Bells.” The city was even _louder_ and _busier_ than usual this time of year if that was even humanly possible. With more people came more traffic came more reasons for the angry cab drivers to honk their obnoxious car horns. It wasn’t that Clay didn’t like noise. It’s that he didn’t like a lot of it.

It was probably because of this reason that he found himself tucked away into a familiar bookstore, familiar enough that he could find the fiction section blindfolded and spun around twice. He remembered the first time coming here, when he had to get down the step stool to reach the fifth shelf.

It was quieter in the bookstore than anywhere else in the city, Clay presumed, even quieter than in his college dorm (which wasn’t saying much at all as his neighboring dorm threw raging parties every other weekend). Clay liked quiet. He liked familiar. He liked how he could run his fingers along the thick and thin bindings of the well-worn books and recognize each author’s name—

But there was a glitch in the system. A spark of unfamiliarity where it shouldn’t be.

Clay frowns as he freezes in place from where he had been inspecting the ray of books on the seventh shelf. Wedged between _The Catcher in the Rye_ and _Franny and Zooey_ was a thin, unnamed, yellow notebook. The yellow stuck out like a sore as the color was shades brighter than any of the classic novels surrounding it.

Clay _could_ have left it. He could’ve moved on, picked out a book to read, and went about his day.

But he didn’t. That wasn’t who he was.

What kind of person is Clay, may you ask?

Why, he’s the kind of damn _idiot_ to pick up the yellow notebook, turn it over in his hands twice, and frown at it before he took a few strides across the store to halt in front of the information desk. The worker behind it didn’t look up even as Clay cleared his throat which, he realized with some bitterness, was fair as this was the same worker Clay had been harassing about placing an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel into the pornography section. What, could you blame him? Fitzgerald didn’t deserve to be shamed in such a way. (The true question was: how did Clay discover it there in the first place?)

Clay clears his throat again, and with a very dramatic sigh, the worker looks up in the most exasperated way possible. “What?” he snaps, eyes tired and brows flat. Clay holds out the notebook to him gingerly,

“You put this in the wrong section,” Clay says, and his voice was brash even if he didn’t _mean_ to come across as rude, “just in case you were wondering.”

The guy took one look at the notebook and for an instant, Clay swore that something akin to recognition washed over his face before the employee promptly turned around and acted as if Clay were see-through.

“Um, hello? I’m trying to help you out here, dude. Youput a _notebook_ in the _classics section._ That’s pretty hard to do. So. You’re welcome.” No response.

“Wow, really? Thank you _so_ much for letting me know! Now excuse me while I ‘restock' the cabinets for the next hour so that when I come back, you and all of your little _opinions_ will be gone.” Without further word, the angered employee walked past Clay with such force that his shoulder bumped his as the worker disappeared behind a pair of swinging doors on the back wall.

Thoroughly irritated by now, Clay looked down at the notebook in his hands and absently carded his thumb under the cover page and turned it over between his thumb and index finger. He fully anticipated seeing a blank, lined page. But as it turned out, the day was full of _many_ surprises, the first being that the page wasn’t blank at all. In fact, it bore three challenging words:

_DO YOU DARE?_

It was a short fragment of a sentence that definitely needed more context to make sense, context that Clay didn’t have. The writing was messy, scrawny, but legible because Clay’s handwriting was just as bad (if not worse). Again, Clay could have easily set the yellow notebook from the shelf from which it came.

But that wasn’t the kind of person Clay was.

And so, without much thought, Clay carded his thumb under the page and flipped it. He anticipated another blank page, another disappointment; maybe the person who wrote the first page was just testing out a pen.

But it turns out, that wasn’t the case.

The next page was littered with the same scrawny hand writing, but instead of a single, all-caps sentence, there were multiple.

_I’ve left some clues for you… if you want them._

Clay’s brows furrow.

But he turns the page anyway.

_So, you’ve chosen to play? Interesting… I hope you’re well read, then._

The next page flipped without thought.

This time, the contents were rather baffling.

There were eight flat lines that, as Clay guessed, were meant to be filled with words. In a quick motion, his eyes flickered across the page and landed on the adjacent page, where in smaller letters, the user of this notebook had scrawled down various titles always followed by three numbers, the first line reading as _French Pianism 88/2/2._

French Pianism…

Under the title was a note that read: _hope you’re up for some heavy reading._

Clay didn’t like the sound of that.

But he was no quitter.

So, he did what anyone would do, which was go up to the help desk where, surprise surprise, the employee he regularly harassed was back from stocking up the shelves. The employee took one good look at him and heaved a heavy, heavy sigh.

“Oh my God,” he said, “ _what.”_

“Do you have anything under French Pianism?” Clay asked, and the employee gave him a sharp look, eyes narrowed as his eyes darted down to the notebook being held in his hands.

“Not for you,” the employee said, shrugging as he whirled around as if Clay wasn’t there in the first place. Clay’s lip curls.

“Look, I’m sorry if I insulted you earlier. Or the time before that. Or the time before that… but isn’t it, like, your _job_ to help me?”

The employee turned around and pinched the creased skin between his brows before he waved a lazy hand to the notebook clutched in Clay’s hands. “They told me not to help you with anything in that book.”

Clay’s brows raise. “Wait, there is a _they?_ Someone wrote this and told you not to help me with it?”

The employee gulps, “no. No, I never said that.”

“Oh yes you did,” Clay said with that insufferable grin taking over his face. With a newfound motivation, Clay turned around and jogged off, but not without shouting “thanks for your help!” over his shoulder.

“I didn’t help you!” the employee barked back.

And so it began. The wild goose chase.

Clay ended up finding a book marked _French Pianism_ in the music section that was so high up on the shelf that even he had to strain to reach for it. He discovered that the numbers 88/2/2 meant page 88, line 2, second word. _Are._

Feverishly, he scrawled down this word in the first blank.

The next clue he received was “an amber eye looking over a city of blue.”

 _The Great Gatsby._ The word clue he received was “you.”

_Are you._

An hour (or two, who knows) later, Clay found himself with ink-smudged hands and two remaining words. So far, he had _are you going to be lonely._ He had sifted through books ranging from _Harry Potter_ to _The Pleasures of Gay Sex_ (with that title was accompanied the small side-note of “sorry, that one was my friend’s idea”). But now, as he held _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,_ Clay turned to page 50 as the clue instructed him to when a small note fluttered out of the book and onto the floor.

Clay unfolded it, and inspected the front side, which only said _ARE YOU BRAVE?_

And that’s exactly how Clay found himself clearing his throat in front of the entire bookstore, standing on a soapbox with a shitty microphone in hand, and written note in another, doing a dramatic reading of the lyrics of the song “River” by Joni Mitchell. He cringed at the sound of his own voice trying to read the words with drama as he weakly attempted to avoid the piercing gazes of the unsuspecting occupants of the otherwise uneventful bookstore. He had to give it to New York that no matter how bizarre of a thing someone did, none of the passing people really seemed to be affected by it. Especially those random people on subway rides who decide to start breakdancing in the center of the train car, or even people who decide to preform an entire pole dance with the hand rail; no one offered so much as a glance up from their phones.

After a painstaking minute or two, Clay was shocked back to reality once he heard his own tired voice fizzle into nothing after the high screech of the microphone being turned off, and in annoyance, he whirled around to find the employee he thoroughly pissed off earlier as the culprit, unashamed with the plug held in his hands. Clay furrowed his brows.

“Hey, I wasn’t done,” he says defensively, hopping off the soapbox and fitting the folded note back into his front pocket.

“I’m putting you out of your misery,” the worker says, but rephrases this as, “well, more like putting _me_ out of my misery.”

“But-”

“Kid, relax,” the employee says with a gentle roll of his eyes, “the last two words? You just said them.”

Clay immediately freezes as he fervently tries to recount the last lyric he said…

_It’s coming on Christmas._

_On Christmas._

Quickly, Clay clicked his pen to life and scrawled down the last two words to discover that the message he had busted his ass to discover was:

Are you going to be lonely on Christmas?

_Are you going to be lonely on Christmas?_

At first, Clay scoffed.

But then he really looked at the message written in his own shitty hand writing.

What kind of a person would spend so much time in a bookstore right before Christmas creating some elaborate scavenger hunt for some stranger to partake in?

More like… what kind of person would spend all of their time trying to decode the scavenger hunt and become invested enough to the point of no return?

Clay, apparently.

And it was undeniable how curious he was about this mystery person, who he didn’t know anything about. Not even their gender. Not even their age, or name. Nothing.

But that’s what was so _interesting._

And so, Clay slipped the notebook into his satchel, pulled his scarf tight around his neck, and left the bookstore without further word to the employee who was squabbling something like _“don’t forget to put the notebook back on the shelf, blondie!”_ to which he only received a slam of the front door as response.

Clay couldn’t help the small smile that fit his face, even as it was miserably cold and he felt as if his ears were going to fall off with the negative temperatures.

_Game on._


	2. Chapter 2

Christmas was the best time of year.

According to George, at least.

Since he was a kid, he was used to coming home from school with rosy cheeks and a cup of hot chocolate waiting by the door to warm him up before he ventured into the backyard to play in the snow with his siblings. He loved the days when they would be snowed in and he and his siblings would play games in the house to entertain themselves. He loved falling asleep to the sound of the crackling fire place and the smell of the burning wood.

But this was his first Christmas alone, void of anyone related to him. In fact, his entire family was an ocean away.

It was a last-minute arrangement as… well, _something_ happened and George ended up on Clay’s doorstep asking if he could sleep on his couch for two weeks because he was supposed to move into his new apartment _after_ Christmas but because of his sudden change in plans he didn’t have anywhere to stay and, thankfully yet unsurprisingly, Clay let him stay without many questions at all.

Living in Clay’s apartment wasn’t much different from their usual routine. Because they were the closest friends could be, George often stayed at Clay’s apartment to play video games or eat all the food in his fridge many days of the week, even though they were both college students piled up in school work. Often times, George would wake up on Clay’s couch, or sometimes curled up on the foot of his bed with a game controller on his chest.

Despite getting to spend this wonderful time of year with his favorite person, George couldn’t help but feel the bitter loneliness nag at him every now and then. Sometimes when he’d look out the window and see the snow falling, he’d think of how he and his brother would try and catch snowflakes on their tongues when they were kids, and then suddenly he remembered that that same brother was across the Atlantic and he wouldn’t be seeing him this year—

“Hey,” came Clay’s voice accompanied by the sound of the front apartment door shutting, successfully ripping George from his intrusive thoughts. George looked up from where he’d been zoning off at the television, which was playing some 80s movie he hadn’t really been paying attention to. George shivers as it seemed Clay had tracked in some of the cold with him, and he pulls the nearest blanket closer to himself.

“Hi,” he responds, stretching out his limbs and looking up at Clay whose freckled cheeks were dusted in a pink from the cold. “How was your walk, you old man?”

“Hey now,” Clay starts defensively, shrugging off his coat and leaving it on the coat hanger by the door along with his scarf and stocking cap, “it’s not weird for people to go on walks! I just wanted to get a hot chocolate because that hot chocolate mix you bought just sucks, so-”

“You’re the one who got that hot chocolate! Stop trying to blame me for your mistakes,” George huffs, but still upholding the playful atmosphere as he carelessly tossed the nearest pillow somewhere in Clay’s direction.

Clay doesn’t bother locating the pillow as he instead plops down beside George on the surprisingly comfortable couch, immediately yanking at the blanket George had to put it over his own legs.

“Oh my _God,_ you’re like an ice cube!” George wails as he unsuccessfully tried to squirm away from Clay and his ice-cold hands and feet. “Do you _mind?!_ Get away from me!”

Clay does that (absolutely endearing) wheezing laugh as he doesn’t move an inch away from George and, in fact, had the audacity to scoot _closer_ to him. “Aw, c’mon George, don’t you wanna cuddle with me?”  
“As a matter of fact, no! You’re _so_ cold what the hell-”

After a while of half-wrestling and mostly laughing, Clay finally excused himself to take a hot shower with the impression that George would cuddle with him after that (he should know better by now; he knew better than anyone that George wasn’t a touchy-feely person, which was fine because Nick most certainly was, so he made up for it).

Here’s the thing.

George is… well, he’s gay.

But here’s the other thing.

_No one knows._

At least, none of his friends. Except for Nick, who found out by complete accident. George actually can’t remember telling him in the first place, so he figured he was drunk, or something. But the point is, Clay didn’t know. Clay didn’t know his best friend was gay. He knew Nick was bisexual, patted him on the back and said “I support you” and “I’ll beat up any homophobes for you, man” in a way that made George selfishly wish that he could be Nick in that moment.

But he was, admittedly, terrified.

Even if Clay accepted him (which he would, George knew the kind of person he was), he didn’t want to ruin the delicate bond they had. He didn’t want to worry that Clay would secretly think that George was weird, or suspect that George had a thing for him or something like that. So he did the easy thing, which was not tell him.

Here’s where this comes into play.

He’s gay, in New York City, which is the gayest place on the planet (rivaled only by Portland). And, after confiding in Nick about how lonely he was around his favorite time of year, he was given the stupidest, most awful idea ever:

Get a notebook, spend hours trying to code a message by using titles of books he loved as a kid and college student alike, put it back on the shelf and pray to anything that someone other than a creepy old man or, god forbid, a _female_ pick up the book.

_George, let’s face it,_ Nick had told him, hands pressed firmly on his shoulders, _you suck at talking to people. That’s just that. But… maybe you don’t have to_ talk _to them. You can be your nerdy self in this notebook and whoever picks it up will be put through these little trials to make sure they’re just as nerdy as you._

And that’s when it began. Mission Impossible: getting George a boyfriend.

Even if nothing came of his little yellow notebook (actually, George though it was green, but he’d figure it out eventually), it was nice to hope.

“Oh George~ you know what time it is?” And just like that, George was torn from his own thought process once again by the likes of his _insufferable_ friend.

“Minecraft time?” George squawks back, to which Clay whooped (he took this as a “yes”) and before he knew it, he was huddled on the edge of Clay’s bed, blanket strewn over his back, both staring at the Xbox Clay had mounted on the wall. They were trying to play bed wars but due to it being around 2 in the morning and the fact that Clay wouldn’t stop trying to weasel his way closer to George, they were failing. Miserably.

“Clay, are you near the bed? I think the Blue Team just- NO CLAY DON’T JUMP NEAR ME LIKE THAT-” And after Clay’s character on screen jumped to close to George, he was sent off the bridge he had been attempting to create just as their bed was destroyed and he broke out into the most shrill screech as if his very soul had been possessed by some helium-crazed demon.

“Jesus, George!” Clay shouted back, his character falling off the map just due to shock of George screaming— no, screeching— so loudly. “Keep it down! Oh my _God.”_

Despite the fact that George’s vocal cords were practically vibrating and Dream had George’s blanket half on his lap again, he was laughing and then so was Clay, his real laugh and not that tea-kettle thing he did when he was laughing himself to death. Here they were, two college guys in their mid-20s, playing Minecraft and laughing themselves to their graves (much to the aggravation of their poor, poor neighbors).

George didn’t remember falling asleep, but he remember how irritating it was to sub-consciously play tug-of-war with his blanket for most of the night. And, as his eyes lazily drifted open, he saw the sunlight stream into a room in a way that it must’ve been early afternoon. He wasn’t shocked; they always slept in pretty late.

Waving a hand over his mouth as he yawned, George blinked in disorientation to realize that he fell asleep in Clay’s room (again) and, propping himself on his elbow, he was read to roll over and go back to sleep until he realized that there was something in the way.

Right next to him was Clay himself, sleeping without a blanket (he must’ve let George keep it), peaceful in a way he could never be when he was actually awake. Despite all of their time together, George couldn’t place a time when he had woken up to the sight of Clay sleeping beside him, his lashes heavy and skin painted gold in the rays of sun peaking through the cracks between the curtains. Suddenly, George was very aware of the warm blanket resting on his lap and he lifted it from himself to carefully place over Clay, who shifted slightly, stilled, and curled into the newfound warmth of the blanket. George couldn’t help but harness a small smile at the sight of it.

“Watching your homie sleep, huh?” came the sudden whisper in his ear that surprised George so bad that he actually jumped and shouted in shock in time to turn around and find Nick standing there with a suspicious, raised brow.

“ _Jesus,_ man, you scared me,” George muttered, though his attention was brought back to Clay who sleepily mumbled,

“mmnn too early…”

George dampened a little at the fact that he’d disturbed Clay’s delicate sleep and he rose from the bed, saying “sorry, Clay, we’ll be quieter” at the same time that Nick decided to bellow “WAKEY WAKEY MOTHERFUCKERRR! RISE AND SHINE!”

“What do you even _want,_ Sap?” George asked, completely exasperated as he made his way over to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. He didn’t miss the way that Nick’s nose scrunched in disgust at the sight of it as he and Clay endlessly ridiculed George for his drink preference.

Nick shrugged as he slumped into a stool aligning the kitchen counter as it seemed that Clay had kicked Nick out of his room saying “only wake me up if someone’s dead.”

But George knew that Nick had something up his sleeve. He had that little glint in his eye that he did when there was something interesting that he wanted to say, or some kind of motive to whatever it was he might be doing.

“Dude,” Nick starts, voice hushed as he leans over the counter. George waves his hand in anticipation. “Someone responded.”

George’s morning (well, technically it was noon) brain didn’t want to work. He blinked blankly. “Responded..?”  
Nick raises his brow and George gasps. “Wait, like- _responded_ responded? To… well, you know-”

On cue, Nick dug around his backpack and whipped out the fateful yellow notebook that George had stowed away in his favorite bookstore just days ago. His eyes widened considerably at the very sight of it and before he could help himself, he flipped through the pages to recognize his own messy handwriting but then, someone else’s. His heart did a somersault in his chest, then another as he realized that whoever this was had discovered each clue correctly and left George a note, too.

“Well?” Nick asked expectantly, fingers drumming from where they rested on the kitchen counter, “what did they say?”  
George looks back down at the page, turning it to see that the next had a page full of unfamiliar handwriting, a note just for him—

“What are you guys up to?”  
George and Nick both immediately scrambled back to life, George fumbling to shut the notebook and hide it in the closest place possible, which happened to be down his shirt (stupid idea) and turn around to face Clay, who was awake (just barely) and rubbing his eyes, standing with his arms folded in the entrance of the kitchen. George looks at Nick for help, who just looks back at him with the same deer-in-headlights look so George just blurted the first thing that came to mind, which was: “porn.”

Nick looked at him with a momentarily stunned expression before turning back to Clay, who, despite the slight raise of his brows, didn’t seem too concerned. “Aw, really? Why didn’t you tell me, man? We could’ve had a porn-watching party.”

“You mean a threesome?” Nick quips, and Clay snickers, resulting in the two of them fist-bumping. George brings his palm to his face as he slips off from his perch on the counter and muttered,

“You both disgust me.”

He managed to slip away from Clay and Nick and all of their shenanigans to the bathroom, where he pulled out the notebook that he had just been _itching_ to read since the moment he had placed it on the shelf for the first time.

Back leaned against the closed door of the bathroom, George held the notebook tight in his hands as his eyes gazed over the page and the, admittedly, much neater handwriting than his own.

_You asked me how if I’m going to be lonely on Christmas and, honestly, I don’t think I have an answer for you._

George furrows his brows.

_That might not make sense to you, but what I mean is that I’m not spending it with family, so I guess it’s supposed to be lonely, but this year, I don’t mind it as much._

George’s face resolved. The way this person wrote seemed… eloquent.

_You strike me as the type of person who loves this time of year and, don’t get me wrong, I like the seasonal Starbucks drinks and whatever, but the rest of it just sucks. I mean, come on, do you enjoy not being able to walk on the sidewalk without running into a blasted drunk caroling group? Because I sure don’t._

_Well, anyways, I think you’re interesting, mystery person. You have great taste in literature, which I think really reflects a person’s personality. So, I have a proposition for you._

_Let’s not be lonely for Christmas._

_Let’s make this the best fuckin’ Christmas this city has ever seen._


	3. Chapter 3

**_Clay_ **

Clay could recite the whole damn thing, word for word, backwards and forwards with the amount of times he’d read it.

Read _what,_ you ask?

The response he received in that yellow notebook that found a way of weaving its way into each of his thoughts nowadays.

In hope, Clay returned to the book store and passed by his _favorite_ employee who, despite wearing his usual look of irritation upon Clay’s presence, gave him a nod towards the direction of the familiar shelf Clay first found the notebook on. And, sure enough, there it was, back again as if by magic.

_What are you, some heathen? I’m going to start calling you Mr. Grinch._

Clay had snorted at that. Geez. This person had some pep to them.

_Anyways, Mr. Grinch, despite your terrible taste in holidays I have to say that I’m impressed you picked up the trail I left you. And I do have to agree that someone’s choice in literature can say a lot about who they are._

_That said, I want to get to know you if that isn’t weird. I know it might seem really bizarre to get to know a stranger through a notebook as, for all I know, you could be some perverse old man, or a highly-trained Russian spy (if you are, that’s really cool honestly but please don’t kill me)._

_I have an idea, though. And if you don’t like it, feel free to put this book right back on the shelf where you first found it, no hard feelings._

Clay looked at the last sentence in wonder as it was the last on the page. The ink was slightly smudged on the last ‘s’, proving it hard to read as the handwriting itself was already plenty messy to begin with. At first, Clay hesitated. Did he really want to do this?

Little did he know, turning this page was sealing his fate. A fate that would take time to discover, but would come to him nonetheless.

And so he turned it.

_Let me take you on an adventure._

_Don’t leave your brains behind, though, Mr. Grinch._

_Down the street and to the right, you’ll find the best place on Earth that can take you on the most out-of-this-world adventures. Forgive me for sounding like I’m advertising something. In this store, I’ve left you a note. It’s up to you to find it, though._

_Feel free to leave the notebook somewhere in the store, maybe with the cashier, so that I can find it._

_Best of luck to you._

It was two days ago that Clay had read that note in the notebook, two days ago that he had spent pacing up and down the street, inspecting every store on the right, just as the notebook said, as far as four blocks away. But it was to no avail.

So Clay became desperate, so desperate that he did something that was a _serious_ cry for help.

He went to Nick for advice.

(That’s saying a lot.)

“Sap, please, for the love of _God._ I need you,” Clay whined as he walked into Nick’s apartment without warning, nudging off his shoes to rest by the door and flopping onto the couch. He dramatically threw his elbow over his eyes and ignored Nick’s returning “jeez, Clay, you’d think someone died.”

“Okay, I know this is going to sound crazy,” Clay said, sitting up and pulling the well-used notebook from his large trench coat pocket and feverishly flipping through it, “but I kind of met a stranger in a notebook based on clues they left for me to decode a message and they seem really interesting and I can’t crack this clue and it’s been two days and what if they give up on me and I never get to know who this person is? Sap, this person could be my _soulmate_ and I wouldn’t even know because-”

“Jesus,” Nick says, sitting down beside him as Clay actually panted for breath after saying that entire tangent without taking a breath. “Wow. Okay. Uh.” Nick turned the notebook over in his hands with raised brows. For some reason, he didn’t seem at all surprised or disappointed about the part where Clay was talking to some rando in a notebook. He seemed more surprised about the notebook itself.

“Well?!” Clay says impatiently as he throws his legs to the side to properly sit up. His knee bumped up and down with anticipation after Nick scanned over the scrawled notes in the notebook.

“Well,” Nick starts, “you’re crazy, which is given, obviously-”

“There’s no time for that shit!” Clay exclaims, “get on with it. Do you have any idea of stores nearby that bookstore that have ‘out-of-this-world adventures’? I checked all the places but I couldn’t find anything to fit that description, and-”

“Calm down, man. Don’t fear when the mighty SapNap is here.” Clay actually groans at that but Nick ignores him, “out-of-this-world adventures? Doesn’t that make you think of anything?”  
Clay frowns. “I don’t know, sounds like an ad for a theme park.”

“Yes, but- what’s the only place someone can have an adventure? Something that most people have access to?”  
“A car?” Clay offers unhelpfully. Nick actually facepalms at that and Clay squawks, “what, do _you_ have any better ideas?”  
“Actually, yes,” Nick says with his head held high, “I always do, Clay, just admit it. But _think._ I thought you were supposed to be smart or something.”

Clay throws him a glare but he does return to actually thinking. Out-of-this-world adventures… something that most everyone had access to…

“Video games,” Clay suddenly blurts, mostly to himself, and suddenly, he lights up, “wait, how did I not think of that? There’s that game store down the block from that bookstore— I have to go, Sap!” Clay claps the notebook shut, stuffs it back into his pocket, shoves his feet into his shoes and practically sprints out of the apartment as Nick shouted a “you’re welcome, you imbecile!” back at him.

____________________

This game store was even more familiar to Clay than the bookstore was. He came here often, stopped by after work or classes to see what new games they had, to check in with the cashier and see how she was doing, how her kids were, or that guy who always was restocking the shelves and worked on weekends to work around his high school schedule. Each time he stepped in the store, he was welcomed with a “what’s up, Clay?” and a friendly pat on the back. Today was no exception.

“Want some hot chocolate? I think there’s still some left in the break room,” Arthur, the high school kid, offered him. He was holding an old Pokémon game in his hands, his shirt matching with a large Pikachu print all over it. Arthur was a sweet kid, he reminded Clay a lot of himself when he was that age. Tall, gangly, awkward, and a complete nerd. Gotta love him, though.

“I’m okay,” Clay says, “say, did you see someone come in here and leave a note somewhere?” Clay fully accepted the employees to help him out, unlike the dummy at the bookstore. Instead, he was met with wide-eyed glances and gazes thrown at each other. Clay furrows his brows. “What? Do you know the person who left it or something?” Clay asks, mostly sarcastic as he turns the notebook over in his hands. Arthur’s eyes widen.

“No!” Arthur blurts loudly, and Rosa, the woman at the cash register, visibly gulped. “No, of course not-”

Clay narrows his eyes. “Hmm, okay… interesting… well, did you see where they left the note?”

“Can’t tell you that,” Rosa said sweetly but with a conviction that said she wouldn’t be budging on that one. Clay’s jaw dropped,

“Whaaaaat? Why, Rosa? Why do you do this to me?”

“I promised h- them I wouldn’t say anything,” Rosa says at ducks her head down.

“Okay, I see how it is. Game on, then.” His face splits into a grin, “no pun intended.”

Arthur actually groans, making Clay smile even prouder.

But the smile faded after spending a half hour scouring the shelves, behind the old arcade machines, under the cash register, on the ceiling— but there was nothing. Even after another half hour, neither Rosa nor Arthur took pity on him.

About ready to give up and come back the next day as the shop was just five minutes from closing time, Clay hung his head and heaved a heavy, heavy sigh as he re-wrapped his scarf around his neck, slipped the notebook on the counter with a half-assed apology written in it, and turned to the door before Rosa finally broke and said: “Hey, Clay sweetie, you can’t just leave empty-handed. Why don’t you get yourself something?”

Clay looked back at her skeptically and decided she probably pitied him but he gave in, so his feet lead him to the all-familiar route of the Minecraft section.

He grinned slightly as he saw a “Minecraft Handbook” that made him chuckle by default. One Christmas, George got it for him and wrote little snide notes on every page as the book was clearly intended for beginners. They laughed and laughed at it as George successfully was able to insult Clay on most every page, ranging from _remember that time you got killed by a zombie because you forgot how to use your shield?_ and _imagine being a noob and dying in lava._

But as soon as Clay picked up the book, something slipped out of the front cover.

A note.

Clay’s eyes widened. He looked to Rosa with an unfiltered grin and she just smiled back a little shyly. “I never helped you,” she says before turning back around and returning to work. All the note said was:

_You found me! Congrats._

Clay turned the note over to see one last bit that read: _this is my favorite video game, actually. I hope you agree, or have at least played. If not, feel free to buy the book this note fell out of._ Clay just laughs. Oh, if only mystery-person knew who they were talking to. _Anyways, you can write back if you’d like, but be sure to put this with the cashier, Rosa. She’s very kind so be nice to her!_

Clay picked up a pen from the counter of the check-out and wrote down all he had been thinking the past few days. He ripped out the previous apology he had written out and replaced it with a new note:

_I’m sorry it took me forever to find your clue. You’re tough, you little Christmas enthusiast._

_Don’t think I’ll go easy on you, now. I’ll be sure to take you to nice places in the city that you’ll hopefully like as much as I do. By the way, great taste in video games. Minecraft is my favorite game, too._

_The clue I’ll leave you won’t be easy for you to find. It’s across the street from the most slippery, cold, people-packed and miserable place in the city and hidden between Abbey Road and a blank abiss. Abess. Abyss. How do you spell it? Please let me know, because I have no idea._

_P.S. I’m not the Grinch, in case you were wondering. Call me Dream instead. If you manage to find the clue, I’ll tell you why._

And so, the notebook was left with Rosa, and Clay returned home, after a short stop at the record store.

____________________

It was around nine pm by the time Clay managed to step back inside his warm apartment safe from the endless crowds of downtown Manhattan. Clay’s ears were still ringing from the person in the center of Times Square who, for some reason, felt the need to belt out the lyrics of Jingle Bells. At least, what was _supposed_ to be Jingle Bells.

Once he left his boots by the door and hung up his coat in a way that George would certainly scold him for, Clay made scurried over his room to find blankets or hoodies, whichever came first to warm himself up. His nose and ears were numb. “Hey Georgie, where are ya? Give me some hugs, I’m freezing my ass off!”

There wasn’t an immediate reply, and Clay frowned. Usually, when George was out late, he sent Clay a text. But Clay hadn’t gotten a text other than the meme of a zoomed-in, distorted image of Gru from “Despicable Me” with an accompanying message that said _ha, this reminds me of you._

“George?”

Clay decided that George probably was out and forgot to text him about it as he nudged open the door to his room, only to find someone already sitting on his bed. And there George was, gaze fixated on his phone clutched in his hands, blanket draped around his shoulders and legs folded. His lips were pressed together in a tight line, harnessing a troubled expression that Clay hadn’t ever seen on his face in the four years they had been friends. He didn’t recognize it. Whenever George was stressed, he usually went about it calmly. If he was frustrated, his eyes would flare a little and maybe his voice would fluctuate, but he’d calm down more often than not. George was a peaceful person.

But right now, he looked like his entire world just fell apart.

“George?” Clay said for the third time, but his voice was softer than anything else. George snapped out of his trance and it was concerning how quickly his face went from the look of pure loss to one of complete normalcy. “Hey, did something happen?”

George clicks off his phone and tilts his head to look up at Clay with a small smile that didn’t look genuine at all. “No, nothing happened. Why? Is everything okay with you?”

Clay dampened a little at the obvious deflection, but he decided to let it slide. George was strong. If he needed Clay, he would tell him. Obviously, Clay knew something was up from the moment he showed up at Clay’s doorstep with his suitcases in hand and his entire frame practically radiating with anxiety.

“Yeah, don’t worry. You just looked a little spacey.” Clay shrugs and picks out some clothes in his closet to change into from his jeans, and turns his back to George who didn’t so much as bat an eye as he was already starting up the Xbox. Unfortunately they had to play through there instead of their usual PC setup as George’s PC was in storage at the moment, waiting to be set in his new apartment. “Can I have my daily hug, now?”  
George scoffs and turns to face Clay with a raised brow. “Daily hug?” he repeats, tone laced in sarcasm as usual. Clay nods eagerly and George concedes, much to his extreme shock. Most of the time George would swat him away with an “ew, gross” and that would be the end of it, but for some reason, tonight was different.

Clay holds his arms out and George slumps forward from where he was sitting on the bed, resulting in his face to just burrow in Clay’s chest. They stood like that for a second, and it was nice, but Clay was still worried. He couldn’t help but worry. “Are you sure everything is okay?” Clay finds himself asking again before he can stop himself, and he nearly kicks himself because he knew George hated it when he was prodded about things he didn’t want to talk about. George just sighed into his chest.

“I’m just tired,” he admits, “we were up pretty late last night. And the night before. And honestly, every night since the beginning of the semester and beyond.”

Clay huffs a laugh, “you have a point. But aw, is baby George tired? Do you need a nappy-nap at 9 pm?”

Clay can practically _hear_ George roll his eyes, but he can actually hear the little laugh that comes with it. “Shut up, Clay.”

And he does. Eventually, they break apart, and Clay does notice how tired George seemed. His eyes didn’t seem able to focus completely on anything, and he just looked paler. Maybe Clay just imagined that bit, though.

Even though George seemed exhausted, they ended up playing Minecraft for an hour or so, and Clay didn’t realize George had fallen asleep until he had gone an entire minute without hearing that tell-tale shrill shriek of George’s. He looked over to see him completely passed out, his socked feet still strewn over Clay’s lap but Xbox controller resting limp on his chest. His lips were parted and he looked completely peaceful, undisturbed.

Clay smiled at the sight and very, very carefully, he lifted George’s feet from his lap, took the controller from his chest, and shut of the Xbox. He then went about the treacherous task of trying to lift him up and haul him over to his bed as making him sleep on the couch would just be cruel at this point. So, Clay tried to thread his arms under George’s and hoist him upright to try and maneuver him into a somewhat reasonable position to carry him over to the bed, but it failed miserably, and suddenly George was half-awake and grumbling, “mmh, Clay, what the fuck..” but it wasn’t long before his head nuzzled into Clay’s shoulder, and he fell right back asleep before Clay even had the chance to tuck him into bed.

“Good night, George,” Clay says as he turns out the light and gathers some blankets to take with him to the couch.

“Good night, idiot,” George mutters back, before his hand reaches around in the darkness and closes around the fabric of Clay’s shirt.

“Yes, sweetheart?” Clay says sarcastically, but instead of a smack to the arm or an equally typical response, all George said was:

“Stay.”

Clay’s expression softened.

He dropped the blankets he had been holding and settled into bed next to him, and fell asleep to the comfortable silence of the room. He woke up to the same comfortable atmosphere, to find the bed beside him still occupied. And when George opened his eyes, he looked less exhausted.

“Hey, Clay?” George called after Clay as he made his way to the kitchen for some juice. Once Clay turned around, George (and his wild bedhead) softly yet sincerely said, “thank you.”

Clay just nodded.


	4. Chapter 4

It took hours for George to figure it out what this mysterious Dream guy wanted from him.

First of all, he was very confused by the first section of his clue. The most “slippery, cold, miserable place.” What could that _mean?_

Then it clicked: the ice rink. Which was very sad because George actually really loved the ice rink, and he had since he was a kid, skating over the frozen lake down the block from his childhood home.

And, obviously, the most people-packed one was the Rockefeller skating rink. Thankfully, George knew the area fairly well, especially after dragging Clay there the other day. But what kind of clue could be hidden between Abbey Road and a “blank abyss”?

George wasn’t stupid. He knew Abbey Road was from the Beatles and their hit album, but a blank abyss..? What in the _world_ could that mean? Last time he checked, there wasn’t an endless void across from Rockefeller skating rink.

And then, as he sat on the bench on the corner of the street across from the skating rink, hot chocolate warm in his hands and Nick still talking his ear off, George suddenly illuminated with realization.

The record store.

It was right across from the skating rink.

And the note?

Right between the Beatles albums or Abbey Road and The White Album (hence, the blank abyss), George found the note, ripped out from the notebook and folded over twice, a little note of _you found me!_ on the front, just like George’s previous note.

George plucked it from its hiding place and leaned against the cabinet behind him that was filled with music CDs and record players. George hadn’t been in this record shop many times given he didn’t have a record or CD player, but he did enjoy most of this vintage music, especially of the Beatles and similar artists. _Being British and not knowing the Beatles is sacrilege,_ George had explained to Clay once.

Feeling the pride swell in his chest as he unfolded the note, George fervently read it.

_Congrats! You clearly know your music. I hope you hate ice skating as much as I do._

George bites his lip to hold back a laugh at that one. This person might have great music and game taste, but they were bound to disagree on some things, apparently.

_Now, as promised, I guess I’ll tell you about why I told you to call me Dream, at least for now. My favorite Christmas song is “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, so I figured it would only be fitting to bring you to a record shop to tell you that. A common word in the song is “dream”. I don’t know. Kind of stupid, right?_

George smiled more at that. It wasn’t stupid at all… it was cute, actually.

_Well, anyways… leave the notebook in the classical section. Only old people listen to that shit._

That rips a laugh out of George loud enough to make other innocent customers in the store look at him in dismay and confusion. He cleared his throat and returned to reading.

_Tell me, what’s your favorite Christmas song?_

And so he did.

George forced Dream to skate across Rockefeller skating rink in order to get the notebook that was on the far end of the rink tucked under the railing (he got an angry note of “I’m going to get you back for that” after that clue). But, Dream was left with the information that George’s favorite Christmas song was “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” _Duh,_ George had written, _and I can hit that high note, obviously._

Turns out, Dream did actually get back at him. They left their note inside of Santa’s hat. The Santa who sat on a throne in the decked-out Macy’s just down the street from Times Square. The Santa who had a long, long, long line of little kids and their tired-looking parents. And George had to wait in that line as a full-grown _man_ without a child to take to Santa. He was the child.

He ended up having to swipe Santa’s hat, actually, because the guy was playing hard-to-get and saying _sorry, kiddo. I don’t know what note you’re talking about. Don’t you want to sit on Santa’s lap and tell me what you want for Christmas?_ George, already seething from the Christmas elf saying _isn’t sixteen a little old to be sitting on Santa’s lap?_ He didn’t even try correcting them. Instead, he reached forward, took Santa’s hat, and bolted.

The only note he left in the notebook after that one is _I hate you, Dream. I hope you know that. You’re the absolute worst._

 _You love me,_ Dream replied in their next note.

Dream’s voice, the way they wrote things and the way it sounded in George’s head— it sounded suspiciously familiar.

George couldn’t quite place it.

____________________

 **Clay:**

hey, George

George

GEORGE

George rolled his eyes at his constantly vibrating phone. Before he pulled it from his pocket, he already knew the culprit.

**George:**

oh my god, what do you WANK

want*

His face flushed. He mis-clicked the ’t’ for a ‘k’ as he was currently in a subway swaying with the quick movement of the train car, his feet planted and right hand clasping the cold of the safety railing. He was squished between a man holding a Christmas tree that kept smacking him in the face and two little kids that were using either of his legs as safety rails. He didn’t even look up, only when their mother apologized profusely. It was funny, honestly.

 **Clay:**

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

GEORGE GEEEZ YOU’RE SO BAD

**George:**

shut up oml it was an accident

 **Clay:**

stop with the cap

 **George:**

you’re so immature

 **Clay:**

you’re the one who asked the

sus question 😳

 **George:**

idiot

what did you want anyway

**Clay:**

Don’t you mean what do I want?

Cuz that’s none of your business

you little British perv ;)

It’s a good thing that killing someone through a hone was virtually impossible.

**Clay:**

Oh I was just wondering when

you’re coming home, I have

an idea >:)

George’s heart fluttered at how Clay called his own apartment a home to George. Clay really was the best, wasn’t he?

**Clay:**

no more talk about wanking, though. I

know you want to but that’s seriously

inappropriate 🤪

Nope, he takes it back. Clay is the worst person on the face of the Earth.

**George:**

I’m omw now

I’m literally going to kill you,

though, so get ready

 **Clay:**

lih-trally

 **George:**

better start running

 **Clay:**

bettah staht rUHnning

 **George:**

just kidding I’m gonna sleep

on the street instead

**Clay:**

NO WAIT PLS I THINK YOU’LL

ACTUALLY LIKE THIS IDEA

George was fighting a smile.

And losing.

____________________

George should know better by now, that Clay’s ideas were absolute chaos.

He should know better after the time that Clay thought it would be “cute” to try and climb onto the no-access roof on top of the apartment complex to have a picnic at three in the morning. The guy simply watched too much TikTok. (That didn’t stop George from joining him for the picnic, though.)

“I think it would be fun to go swimming right now,” Clay declared from where he was drinking a Monster Energy on the couch with _The Bachelor_ playing on the TV.

“Are you- are you joking?” George asks in disbelief, “ _that_ was your grand idea?”  
“Yup,” Clay says cheerfully, “it’s Christmas Eve Eve Eve! We need to do something fun!”

“Yes, and it happens to be colder than the devil’s ass out there,” George adds, dramatically waving a hand to the outside scenery where snow was visibly falling into the night, “not to mention, it’s 10 pm, Clay. No indoor pools would be open right now.”

Clay grins that grin George had grown weary of, because whenever he grinned like that, George either was about to die in his game of Minecraft, or shit was about to go down. By reading the context, he guessed it was the second option.

Turns out, George was right.

Apparently, whatever boujee gym Clay went to had an indoor pool that was, surprise surprise, _closed_ at 10 at night.

Turns out, Clay’s idiotic stubbornness didn’t yield, even in situations like this.

“Clay, I think this is where we turn around,” George said with a small sigh, his hands stuffing into his pockets. “It’s cold, let’s just go home.” There the word was again. Home. Even if where his family was didn’t feel like home anymore, wherever Clay was always would.

As George turned to face Clay, he saw the stubborn glint in his eyes, the spark of determination as he scoured the building for any points of entry. “Clay, don’t be an idiot-”

“Bingo,” Clay mutters, pointing his mitten-clad hand at a slightly cracked open window a floor above them. George’s eyes widened as he realized that Clay wanted to nudge open that window and go instead from there, and he turned to him with raised brows.

“No,” he starts, backing away from his friend who looked at him with a _far_ too ambitious expression for him to be turning around like George asked him to. “No, we’re not- Clay, what are you- Clay!!”

George shrieked as he tried running off, but Clay snatched him up and hoisted him over his shoulder like a fireman. Despite all of George’s protesting, shouting and wailing, Clay still managed to drag him back to where the window was.

“This is harassment! Harassment, harassment! Someone save me from this crazy American!”

Despite all of his shrill screaming and whining, George was laughing so hard that his stomach hurt as he clung onto Clay for dear life. He could hear Clay laugh so hard that he was past wheezing and onto his squawking, loud laugh that only made George laugh harder and harder. They seemed to egg each other on, laughing as if it was a competition, George still slung over Clay’s shoulder like a self-aware sack of potatoes, snow falling heavier as the minutes dragged along. By the time Clay returned George rightfully to his feet, George noticed the snowflakes that had caught on Clay’s long, dark blonde eyelashes, and how pink his cheeks were, making his freckles fade into the rosiness the cold had brought onto him. Despite his colorblindness, George could still appreciate the contrast of Clay’s cheeks and eyes, even if he couldn’t properly see green; he could tell the color was brilliant.

And finally, George managed to wheeze himself back to life as he found his own cheeks rosy and warm. Not just from the cold.

_Wait, what the fuck._

_What the fuck?!  
_ Nope, he wasn’t going to think about it. He wasn’t going to think about it. If he didn’t acknowledge the feelings, they would go away. That’s how it worked.

“Let’s do this,” George says, turning away from Clay and beginning to align his feet with the teeny-tiny ledge he could stand on to attempt to reach the barely-opened window. He could sense Clay’s surprise behind him at George’s sudden change in heart as usually, George was the voice of reason. But something about the atmosphere, something about the way the snowflakes fell so prettily on Clay’s eyelashes, something about the need to prove to himself that he could do something a little crazy sometimes that made him do this. The street lamp flickered, but George didn’t flinch. He was determined.

“Let me help,” Clay insists, and George can hear the snow shuffling behind him before there were hands on his waist. Oh. _Oh._

“Uh,” he says ungracefully, willing himself not to turn around. Don’t turn around George, don’t turn around. His entire form stiffened and he nearly fell from his little perch on the building.

Clay clears his throat awkwardly. “Sorry,” he mutters, his hands unlatching from George’s waist as if his skin had burned him, and he secured his hands in a place that was much more platonic on his upper back, and gently, he helped George climb up and up until his gloved hands gripped the windowsill of the open window. It was an unspoken agreement that George would be the one to try and open this window to accommodate Clay’s deathly fear of heights.

And then they moved on from that tiny, undeniably awkward moment and focused on George somehow trying to pull himself onto the windowsill with the nonexistent upper-body strength he harnessed.

“Come on, George, put those little twig arms to work,” Clay teased from below him, and George purposely swung his foot backwards. Judged on the surprised shout behind him, he figured he proved his point.

“Ugh, I’m so so close,” George groaned, his hand reaching out weakly to try and nudge the window open from where he was dangling from the sill. “Come on, window- come on-”

But as he was only hanging on with one hand with his other hand reaching for the window, he felt his fingers slip. Now, George’s foot was probably about three feet from the ground, which wasn’t a bunch, but it was enough to offer some unpleasant thrill.

“Clay, Clay, I’m gonna fall,” George says in an unsteady voice as his hands scrambled to try and secure a grip on the window sill, but it was too late. His hand slipped from the sill and he screeched, falling backwards before he could save himself.

George felt something warm behind him, but his feet did still hit the snow-covered ground. He felt the impact through his legs, but it stopped at his knees as whatever warm thing caught him managed to save that much.

He swiveled himself around to see that this mystery warm thing was, in fact, Clay, who was breathless with a worried look in his eyes, his arms secured tightly around George’s body. They were pressed so close together to the point where George could see Clay’s frozen breath right before his eyes. He smelled like peppermint.

“You okay?” Clay asked in a hushed voice, his eyes scanning over George’s face for any signs of pain.

George felt like the air had been robbed from his lungs. What was with him tonight?!

George nodded weakly, “yeah, I’m fine, thanks..”

Clay let go of a breath he clearly had been holding onto. “Okay, good.. let’s just go home, okay?”

It was a little disheartening whenever Clay let go of something he clearly had been ambitious about, but George figured it was for the best. He felt the cold settling in, creeping past his layers of sweaters and coats and scarves. Judged on the slight tremor to Clay’s hands that were clasped tightly _around his waist_ , he figured he felt the same.

And then when George straightened up and stood on his feet instead of completely leaning on Clay like before, he winced.

“Ow,” he blurted before he could stop himself. Clay’s bright eyes flashed with worry.

“It’s fine, I think I just-” George winced again as he tried to take a step forward, away from Clay and his really nice hugs and warmth, away from his own goddamn gay denial, only to realize that, judging the pain shooting up his ankle and the buckle to his knee, he had certainly rolled his ankle. “Ow,” he mutters again, and there Clay was again, rushing forward like some prince and holding onto George. _He’s just helping you stand,_ George has to remind himself, _he’s just helping you stand, he’s just helping you stand-_

“Okay,” Clay says, voice steeled and determined, “hold on to me George, okay?”

George gulps, “what-”

And then, Clay got much much closer, his breath in George’s ear, his arms wrapping around him and hoisting him up in his arms. At first, he could feel Clay’s biceps quiver with the weight, but then they stilled. George was actually terrified to turn his head and see Clay’s face. Terrified of what he’d think when he saw him.

Clay was so so close, so close that George could smell his cologne, so close that he could almost hear his heartbeat. “I’m fine,” he protests, but it wasn’t much of a protest as he could feel Clay’s chuckle from where George’s head rested against Clay’s shoulder and neck.

“You’re such a princess,” Clay says, to which George’s face furrows.

“No, you are,” George says, but the amusement was clear in his voice, “you’re the one who’s afraid of heights, _princess.”_

“You’re the one getting carried like a damsel,” Clay returns, to which George opens his mouth, and promptly shuts it. He gathers enough bravery to look Clay in the eye and glare. “But seriously, are you okay? Be honest.”  
Any fight instantly melted at the warmth of concern in Clay’s voice. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just rolled my ankle a little, that’s all.” George rested his head back on Clay’s shoulder, wrapped his arms around him (only to make sure he didn’t fall, though), and closed his eyes. He fell asleep to the feeling of Clay’s neck vibrating against his forehead as he told George a story about the first time he went ice skating.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is fairly angsty towards the end, but it's nothing extreme, don't worry. there's lots of hurt/comfort to compensate :)

**_Clay_ **

Thankfully the commute from the gym to Clay’s apartment was a short one. He had some degree of upper-body strength, but not _that_ much. His arms ached by the time he managed to haul George into his apartment, and despite George’s sleepy protests to be set down, Clay was stubborn. He wouldn’t make his friend limp all the way back.

The reason Clay had been so spontaneous about going swimming was to get George out of his own head. Clay wasn’t dense, especially when it came to George; he knew how much he loved Christmas time, and how he got excited every year to spend time with his family. He knew that his source of sudden, uncharacteristic somberness was definitely linked to the fact that he wasn’t with his family, and whatever reason was behind that.

Clay couldn’t stand watching him slink across the apartment with his phone in hand.

Once they were safely in Clay’s apartment, he set George down on the edge of his bed and begun taking off his own coat and mittens and shoes, tossing them aside carelessly as he looked down to George in worry. “How’s your ankle feel?”

George shrugs, and looks down at his right ankle gingerly, “oh, it’s not too bad, I’ve been through worse… I should just ice it and prop it up and I’ll be fine, right?”

Clay shrugs back, “that sounds about right. Stay here, I’ll get that ready for you.”

“Such a simp, Clay,” George teases, but he was already relaxing and laying on his back.

Now that Clay thought about it, the two of them had fallen asleep side-by-side _way_ more than usual. The other night, they fell asleep with George’s head on his shoulder and his head resting on George’s on the couch. The night before, they both fell asleep while playing Minecraft.

It turned out that tonight was no exception. After Clay helped George get comfortable with the ice on his ankle and finished by propping it up with a pillow, they ended up turning on Netflix and finding the worst-looking TV show they could.

“Netflix and chill?” Clay had asked, turning his head to look at George. The room was dark except for the bright screen, and as the scenes changed, the colors of light on George’s face faded in and out. George just laughed at him.

“You wish,” he mutters, wrestling the popcorn bowl away from Clay to take his own handful before peacefully handing the bowl back.

And so they fell asleep together, again, this time tucked into bed. Patches, Clay’s cat, managed to make an appearance as well as she sat curled and judgmental on the edge of the bed. She looked betrayed at the fact that she didn’t get to take her usual spot beside him as someone else was occupying it.

When Clay woke in the morning, he couldn’t help but look over at George, he was drooling, and his face was smashed into a pillow, and his hair looked crazy with bedhead but the way his chest rose and fall with slow breaths was enough for Clay to be satisfied; George was sleeping, and therefore unable to worry about whatever it was he was worrying about. The sunlight left strips of gold on his skin in a way that reminded Clay of that form of Japanese art where pieces of broken pottery were repaired with liquid gold; George made imperfections and ugly emotions look pretty.

Clay discovered this in an entirely, completely, strictly heterosexual way, of course.

So, after successfully getting Patches to curl beside George’s head (that was as close as she was getting to cuddling him, apparently), Clay left his bedroom tip-toeing to the kitchen to make some breakfast for the two of them. As he somewhat correctly mixed the ingredients for pancakes, his mind drifted to the elephant in the room: the yellow notebook and its occupant. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Who was this person? He didn’t even know their _gender._

When Clay imagined this mystery person, he imagined… a girl. That’s probably what he was _supposed_ to imagine, right? Right..?

She would be kind of tall, but kind of average height at the same time with brown hair, brown eyes, a ridiculous little laugh and a love for Minecraft and music… She’d be cute, Clay could tell by the way she wrote that she was cute. It was something about the shitty handwriting and the sarcasm embedded within it that was hopelessly charming.

As the day dragged by, Clay discovered more about this girl in his head.

Her favorite color was blue. She was terrified of spiders. She loved Christmas because it was the one time of year when all of her family from all over the world came together in one place, and she loved the atmosphere when she walked down the street to see people singing and laughing and drinking in the holiday spirit. But her least favorite day of year was the day after Christmas, when the lights came down, when the signs of “merry Christmas!” were taken down from store windows. _But this year,_ she had written in the notebook that had been left under a statue’s foot in Central Park, _it’s a little bit different._

Clay told her things he didn’t even tell George. He remembered the prompt he was given a few days ago of what his worst fears were. He remembered writing them down in the dead of night, light dim to not wake George as his pen danced across the blank notebook pages. _I’m afraid of myself,_ he had written, _and I feel stupid for saying something that isn’t “eternal loneliness” or “all of my friends and family dying” because honestly, it’s the thought of not knowing myself and who I am that terrifies me the most._

 _I might be a stranger,_ she had replied, _but I think your fears are telling of the kind of person you are. A good one, in my opinion._

How could she be so sure about Clay when he wasn’t even as sure about himself?

____________________

“Romance is bullshit,” George proclaims, to which Clay scoffs.

“Wow, you said that so beautifully,” Clay teases, “you have such a way with words.”

“Not as much of a way with words as Sap,” George argues, motioning over to their friend who was completely passed out asleep on the chair beside the couch Clay and George were sharing. They sat in Clay’s apartment’s living room, which was just a small space next to the kitchen with a TV, couch, and chair that Nick was currently draped over. They had spent the afternoon and beyond together, George having to stay put to rest his ankle. They got to tell Nick all about their wild night and how George fell out of a window, and Nick _really_ got a kick out of the part where Clay had to carry him all the way back.

They ended up having a movie marathon that began with Harry Potter and somehow wound up to Hallmark movies.

“If you hate romance so much, then why are you watching the most bullshit-romance movies on the face of the Earth?” Clay prods George, who had his legs strewn across his lap as usual.

“Because I like to torture myself with unrealistic standards,” George sighs, “because a romance isn’t real if they don’t chase you to not get on a plane because they _love_ you.”

“What?” Clay responds, brows raising as he follows George’s gaze to the bright television, “that’s not true, that never-”

And, as if on cue, the tall, dashing, typical Hallmark male protagonist was pushing past the people loitering in the aisles of the plane the love interest was currently on. _“Jane, wait,”_ the man said to her, _“you can’t go to France… because I’m in love with you!”_ And then he went on a _whole_ tangent about how he’s always loved her and they had a basic, surface-level Hallmark kiss and somehow they ended up both going to France together. The end. Happily ever (ends-in-a-divorce) after.

“You’re a wizard,” Clay marvels, “have you seen this one before?”

George just shakes his head, “nope. My mum loves these though, so I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting these cookie-cutter endings by now.”

They sit in a comfortable silence as they watch the credits role with a long list of names in tiny white font. They were both yawning and ready to go in Clay’s room and harass Nick to play Minecraft with them, but neither had a grain of energy to do so. So they sat, strewn on the couch, staring at the blank television.

“How’s your family?” Clay asks absently, mind spaced as he realized he hadn’t asked George that question yet. Usually, George gushed when he talked about them.

“Good,” George replies too quickly, “yeah, my brother texted me some pictures of the snowmen they made, and I’m sure it’s right about now that my mum will wake up and start making the food for Christmas Eve. It’s our family tradition to make a big dinner and have cookies on C-Christmas Day-”

Clay quickly turned once he heard the crack in George’s voice, and immediately, his eyes widened in alarm. George’s already glossy eyes from the screen were even more glossed over as tears were dribbling down either of his cheeks. He was sniffling and he swiped helplessly at the tears as if to try and stop them, but it was useless.

“George,” Clay murmurs, “hey, I’m sorry I asked about them…”

George just shakes his head, “it’s fine, Clay, it’s-” But his voice was breaking so much that the final word, the final syllable of that lie shattered into nothing; and then George was breaking, too, the delicate facade of someone who was fine breaking right before Clay’s eyes. Cracks Clay wanted to fill with gold, if only George would let him.

George was crying harder than Clay had ever seen him cry. He was shaking so much that Clay could feel it from beside him, and his hands quivered from where they hid his face. As alarmed as Clay was, he gently pushed George’s legs from his lap and just hugged him. His arms framed completely around him, and brought him in to be held. George didn’t hesitate for a second before he sank into the hug and brought his shaking arms to hug Clay back. His breaths were short and his sobs were heavy.

“I’m, I’m sorry,” George chokes out as he seemed just as baffled as Clay, but Clay only keeps his arms firm around George.

“It’s okay,” he says honestly, hands rubbing calming circles on his back, “I’m not going anywhere. Just… let yourself let it out, okay?”

With a mute nod against Clay’s chest, George finally listened. He let it out through tears, and whatever this ‘it’ was, Clay didn’t know, but he didn’t need to. It could’ve been a minute or twenty, but time seemed relative when George was crying in his arms. It was the worst and best moment in the world because Clay knew that George would be safe right here and right now, even if he was hurting and breaking slowly. Clay would be here to piece him back together.

It took a few moments of shaking breaths and sniffling for George to ground himself again, and even as he couldn’t cry anymore, George stayed put. And Clay did, just as he promised.

“I miss them,” George said as his voice broke the silence. His voice was flimsy and timid, but the words rung true.

“I know,” Clay says back, voice just as soft, knowing but not unkind, “do you want to talk about it?”  
There was a long pause.

“You don’t have to,” Clay starts, his chin finding its way to rest on top of George’s hair, “I just-”

“I do,” George blurts, and Clay nearly lets go of him in surprise. Despite being an easygoing person, George didn’t really like talking about stuff that really bothered him like this. “It’s… it might make you think I’m weird, but…”

“It won’t,” Clay assures him, “seriously. Whatever you think will weird me out won’t. I’m pretty sure you would’ve scared me off by now. Remember? I’m not going anywhere.”

The last sentence seemed to resonate as George’s trembling eased as soon as it was spoken. “Okay, okay. Well. Um. Here it goes, I guess.” George clears his throat. “I’m gay.”

Clay’s mouth hung open, then closed.

He… well, he hadn’t anticipated that one.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like it. It was that he was expecting George to say that his parents divorced, or his sister was pregnant, or _something,_ but that he was gay..?

“Clay?” George asks quietly, with a voice so fearful and so, so quiet that Clay wanted to shrivel up and completely obliterate anyone who ever made George feel the need to be so small.

Clay pulled back from the hug and looked down at George, really looked at him. He saw the look of complete fear in his bright, wide eyes, and Clay smiled at him. A big, bright smile that made the fear fade from George’s eyes. Without warning, Clay leaned forward and practically crushed George with his next hug.

“I’m so proud of you,” Clay whispers, “I’m sorry I’m so quiet, I just… wow, George! I had… I had no idea..” Clay tries his best to collect his thoughts, “I support you so hard, man! And I get why you didn’t want to come out to me, it’s okay, you might’ve thought I’d be weird about it, that’s how Nick explained it, but I won’t be, I promise. I just want you to know that this doesn’t change the way I think about you.” Clay shuts his mouth after he realized he’d completely gone on a tangent, but George looked up at him with an expression of complete awe.

“Stop,” George said with such force that Clay looked at him in complete concern. Had he overstepped? Did he make it weird? “You… you’re gonna make me cry again, God-” George was then pressing the heels of his hands to his closed eyes and Clay was breaking into a smile, shaking George lightly by his shoulders and laughing softly, and he knew what he said was true. It made so much more sense. _So_ much more sense.

George opened his eyes again and took a visibly deep breath before he found the courage to look into Clay’s eyes again. His eyes were still a little watery, and his cheeks were pink and his nose was running, but… he looked perfect.

“Well, I told my parents,” George said simply, and Clay’s brows raise as he was ready to ask what they thought, fully expecting a positive answer, but then his heart sunk as heavy as a rock in the ocean. He felt a wave of nausea as in an instant, he knew. Clay felt absolutely sick. “You can probably guess that they weren’t as great about it as you were, and… well, they didn’t kick me out, they just kind of, y’know, told me I should make sure I don’t fall into ‘weird phases’ that the Americans do. Oh, here’s a good one. My mum told me she loved me, so much, and that she hoped I could figure out my ‘problems’ before I came home for Christmas.” George shook his head, “so, so I just didn’t come home for Christmas. I couldn’t.” And then he was sniffling again, “and now I’m not with them and you probably think I’m an asshole buh-because you aren’t with your family either, a-and I’m sitting here worried about a f-fucking Christmas Eve dinner-”

Clay laughs a sad, sad laugh, and draws George in once more. “I know I won’t make anything better by saying that I’m sorry,” he starts, “but I’m sorry, George. I think they’ll come around, they’re good people. But feel free to stay here as long as you need to, okay? Honestly, I’m glad you’re here.” George sniffles, so he keeps talking, “and don’t worry. We’ll have our own fun Christmas. It’ll be great, I promise.”

George nods silently against his chest and quietly says, “I’m so lucky to have you, Clay.”

Clay’s heart flutters weakly, “touché.”

George fell asleep like that, tucked into Clay’s arms with drying tears on his cheeks. Clay fell asleep like that too as he just didn’t have the heart to move George off of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry Christmas everyone!


	6. Chapter 6

The morning of Christmas Eve looked about the same as every other morning in the mid-winter time of New York, but it _felt_ different.

Besides the fact that George woke up to the sound of Nick shouting “simp! Simp! Simp!” at his sleeping form on the couch, and in groggy disorientation, he groaned and shoved his face further into the couch cushion to suppress the noise. But he didn’t remember the couch cushion behind so firm, or smelling like cologne and sweat and something distinct he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Come to think of it, his blanket didn’t have arms and legs the last time he checked…

Silently, George lifts his head to realized that he had fallen asleep in Clay’s arms.

Eyes widening slightly, George glances upward to catch a glimpse of Clay, who seemed to have just woken up from all the commotion Nick was bound to cause. And, without a trace of hesitance, Clay looked down at him with that classic, insufferable, charming grin. “Hi,” he says in a soft voice, far softer than the atmosphere Nick had created with all of his shouting.

“Hey,” George replies, his voice cracking a little from sleepiness.

And then, George remembered what happened. How he broke down, how he cried embarrassingly hard, how he fell from his usual peaceful, non-emotional standards and Clay had been there to catch him. Clay had a habit of doing that, whether it was in the midst of a mental breakdown, or a failed attempt to break into a gym.

George had come out to Clay, too, something he had had nightmares about for years. He tortured himself with the scenarios of Clay acting like everything was fine but with him secretly finding him weird, or suspecting that George had some weird crush on him. But as George looked up into Clay’s eyes, he felt like the biggest idiot in the world. Of course he wouldn’t think that. He was _Clay,_ the most chill, accepting guy in the world.

“Did you sleep okay?” Clay asked, voice still soft.

“I slept WONDERFULLY, thanks for asking!” Nick shouts, loud enough to make George wince, but still chuckle at his friend’s antics.

“Yeah, I slept okay,” George says, his head slumping back to where it was before. “You?” His voice was completely muffled by Clay’s shirt, and for a moment, he was surprised with himself as most of the time, whenever Clay or Nick tried to get some cuddles out of him, he’d practically wound them to get them to leave him be. But this time, it was him initiating.

“I slept fine.” Clay carded his hand through George’s hair so casually that George swore his veins were actually set on fire. “Wow, you sure are cuddly today. Are you feeling okay?”

George lifts his head to scowl at Clay, “don’t get used to it, you clingy idiot.”

“You’re the clingy one!” Clay exclaims, “Nick, look at him, he’s like a little koala!”

“I am not-”

“What!” Nick shouts even louder than before, “George, why don’t you ever cuddle with _me?!_ I’m the best cuddler ever!”

“It’s because _I’m_ his favorite,” Clay says with incredible pomposity.

“Nope, I hate you both,” George mutters, his lids fluttering closed as his body practically begged him to fall back asleep. His voice was slow, and he was becoming acutely aware of the fact that he and Clay were, in fact, completely tangled together in a cuddling position. Clay was laying flat on his back with his arm tucked around George’s shoulders while George completely hugged his middle like, admittedly, a little koala.

“Hey,” Clay murmurs, voice in George’s ear as he gently shook him by the shoulders, “no falling back asleep. We have big plans for today.”

“Mmn,” George mutters back intelligibly.

“Wake the hell up, George! Don’t make me smack your bitch-ass to make you get up,” Nick threatens from behind.

After coaxing from Clay and vulgar threats from Nick, George manages to rise to his feet and face the day.

Maybe it was just him, but the world looked a little more colorful today.

____________________

“Clay, this is a terrible idea,” George says. His legs were shaking with effort.

“Just- woah, woah, fuck-”

“You guys are like babies trying to walk,” Nick snickers, arms folded, “just _move your legs.”_

“I twisted my ankle, dumbass,” George grits through his teeth from where he clung onto Clay for dear life, “I can’t move my right ankle at all. Hence, this is a _terrible idea.”_

See, Clay had the absolutely brilliant idea to go ice skating in Rockefeller center even though George knew for a fact that Clay _hated_ ice skating, so it was quite the interesting choice to make when George, who loved ice skating, had a twisted ankle. Clay assured him that George could hang on to Clay and all would be fine.

Being here reminded George of a few days ago, when his clue from Dream lead him to the record shop across the street. A ghost of a smile appeared on his face at the mere thought of Dream.

“George, careful!” Clay clambered over to try and support George from falling, but he ended up just falling over himself, his back hitting the ice hard enough to make him wince. George gasped and Nick just _laughed_ at him.

“God, Clay, are you alright?” George keeps one hand on the railing and offers his other to Clay, who gladly accepts it and raises himself up to his rightfully standing position.

“Just a slip, that’s all,” he says, shaking out his limbs before he offers his arm to George again. He takes it.

“You _wiped out,_ dude,” Nick muses, finding far too much humor out of this situation than necessary. “Didn’t you, like, grow up here?”

“Kind of,” Clay says, “I visited a lot when I was a kid, but I didn’t move here until I was a teenager.”

“Well, whatever. As a New Yorker, you should be the best skater between the three of us. And look, you can’t even haul skinny old George across the ice.”

“Sap, you’re actually the worst,” George says, glaring darkly but still managing to uphold the joke to their banter.

“Ahh-ctwally,” Nick imitates, his voice airy in what seemed to be a failed British accent.

“Ahh-ctwally,” Clay responds in an equally horrific impression, and as the three of them skated around the ring of Rockefeller, which was buzzing and packed with people, it felt like it was only them.

“Ack-shally,” George imitates back, to which Clay and Nick immediately roar up with protests and _that’s a horrible American impression!_ until all three of them are laughing and clutching their stomachs and bumping into so many poor people trying to enjoy the ice rink like _normal people_ until they finally decided to leave the rink for some hot chocolate. And, as they walked down the street and past the record shop, George’s eyes lingered to the very aisle where he knew the Beatles records were.

____________________

Eventually, Nick had to go to meet his sister, who lived just a half hour out of New York before the two of them flew over to Texas to see the rest of their family for Christmas. It was a hard goodbye as the three of them had been inseparable since Thanksgiving break, which George had spent over at Clay’s Mom’s in Florida. Despite all of his constant insults about the bizarre American holiday, he immediately shut up once he saw the food that Clay’s Mom had prepared for them to enjoy.

“I’m gonna miss that idiot,” Clay muttered as the two drove back from the airport in Queens and back to the general direction of Clay’s apartment.

“Yeah,” George agrees, “but he’ll be back in a week or two.”

And as they drove back in a silence aside from their god-awful singing to Mariah Carey on the radio, George realized something. They were completely alone.

No more Nick to wake them up in the morning, no more Nick to resolve any romance in the atmosphere.

It was a double-edged sword, and George would _surely_ become aware of that within the next few days.

He looked over at Clay, his eyes focused on the road, his hair falling over his face, freckles dusted across cheeks pink from the cold.

Yeah, George was fucked.

____________________

_I know this city like the back of my hand, yet you’ve managed to bring me to places I’ve never seen before. I have to say, I’m impressed._

George grinned at the writing. At the moment, he was laying in Clay’s bed, back pressed against the headboard and yellow notebook clutched in his hands. Clay had run off to go on some last-minute errands before they made dinner together, so at the moment, George had the place to himself, time he used to read Dream’s writing. George wondered how Dream spoke. If his voice sounded like the voice of Dream in George’s head. If Dream even was a _he._

He wondered if Dream was taller than him, if he was around his age, if he was just as lonely as he was on Christmas. He wondered if Dream would get along with Clay.

George didn’t let himself keep wondering. Wondering was a dangerous game, so he continued to read Dream’s response.

_My favorite probably would be that art store with a really good view of the sunset from the back patio. Who knew such a Christmas enthusiast could find such nice places?_

George laughed aloud at that.

_I’d like to thank you, though. I have to admit that I’ve had a lot of lonely Christmases, especially these past few years, but you made it a lot brighter by showing me the world through your eyes. I still don’t like the Christmas craze much, but you made this time a lot more bearable._

_Thank you mystery guy, gal, or non-binary pal._

Oh, an inclusive person?

George’s grin only widened.

_Love,_

_Dream_

Woah.

WHAT.

____________________

It took a great deal of pacing around Clay’s room and staring at the page for George to know his eyes weren’t failing him. He called Nick and begged him for answers to which Nick unintelligibly said, _“he probably just wants to bone you, dude.”_

But Dream said love. _Love._ The L-bomb. The big word.

Just like _that._

What the _fuck_ was George supposed to do with that information?

George never said “love” with as much casualty as his friends could manage. The word always felt heavy and burdened in his mouth whenever he conjured it, so more often than not, he’d just let it go. And when he did make himself say it to relatives or family members, it came out slow, and awkward, but desperate as if he was rushing to get the word out of his mouth.

But this time, the word sat right in front of him. There was no escaping it.

George gulps, ignores Nick’s absolutely terrible advice, and writes Dream back.

_You’ve taken me to a lot of really amazing places too, Dream. I’m glad I could make even the Christmas Scrooge themselves smile for the holidays. I have to say, I can’t believe you made me sing a Christmas carol in Times Square to get the notebook from that street vender. That was just cruel, Dream. Don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for that one._

_I’m relatively new to the city. Well, not really, but I don’t go outside much if I’m being honest, so I’d like to thank you for motivating me to go out of the perimeters of my apartment._

_If we don’t talk again before tomorrow, merry Christmas to you, Dream._

Then the dilemma remained.

Should he play it safe, or take a leap of faith?

…

George didn’t sign the note. Instead, he tucked it into his coach pocket hanging by the door where he would drop off the notebook back at the bookstore for Dream to pick up the day after Christmas as they had agreed.

There was plenty of time to take leaps of faith, but for George, he didn’t feel like that time was now.


	7. Chapter 7

**_Clay_ **

**George:**

Clay

Clay

Clay

CLAY

**Clay:**

Who’s being needy now?!

**George:**

Shut up

Can you FaceTime

Please

**Clay:**

Geez ok ok

Settle down sweetheart ;)

**George:**

I’ll fucking kill you

ANSWER ME DAMMIT

CLAY!!

**Clay:**

Oh my god I’m trying to get

on the subway just calm down!

After way too long, Clay finally answered George’s spam calling.

“What is it?” Clay was surprised to realize that this was a FaceTime call. Usually when George needed something, he went for the audio call. He squinted to look at what was going on in George’s side of the screen as he took a seat on the packed subway bench as he plugged in his earbuds.

Thanks to the shitty underground service, George’s screen was pixelated to the point where practically nothing was visible. Except for… was that smoke?

“What’s going on over there?!”

 _“Okay please don’t kill me,”_ George starts. _Famous last words. “I was trying to make some cookies-”_

Before poor George can finish his sentence, Clay just bursts into laughter. “You, _you_ tried to bake _cookies?”_

 _“Yes!”_ George says, voice cutting out but clearly exasperated. Clay laughs harder and harder until he was wheezing himself to death.

 _“You sound like a tea kettle,”_ George mutters, but it was clear he was laughing too, _“but listen, won’t you? This is serious!”_  
“Oh yeah, yeah, go on George you little wifey,” Clay pants.

_“I’m not- okay anyway, I was baking cookies- Clay! Stop laughing and listen to me!”_

“I’m sorry! I can’t help it!” Clay wails. Many people sitting around him gave him dirty looks, and Clay gulps, trying to smile and show he was sorry (no one cared).

_“And I kind of accidentally lit the towel on fire and so I put it out in the sink but now the cookies are burned and the entire apartment is filled with smoke and I think I kind of fucked up your stove but I can’t tell-”_

“George, George,” Clay interrupts him with his voice still rasping from wheezing so hard, “calm down. It’s fine! That’s actually _really_ funny, you made my day just now.”

 _“I’m so glad,”_ George says with such sarcasm that Clay just has to laugh.

Clay finally brings his attention to the screen, where a very relieved-looking George was raising his brows at the camera.

“Well, I’ll see you in like, five minutes,” Clay says, “don’t burn down my apartment by then, alright?”

 _“Ha-ha, very funny,”_ George sighs, _“see ya.”_

Clay had to admit, as George’s face lagged on his screen a little before vanishing with the ended call, that it was kind of cute how George tried to bake cookies for him before he came back.

“Your boyfriend is cute.” It took a second for Clay to realize that the older-seeming woman who said that and was currently nudging his side was currently talking to _him._

“I, uh, me?” Clay says dumbly, to which the woman laughs.

“Yes, you! You’re lucky to have a boy like that,” she says as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

“He’s uh, he’s not my boyfriend,” Clay stammers, and with the way the woman eyed him, he felt like he _lied_ or something.

“Oh,” she says slowly, “that’s my bad.” She stands up once the subway jerks to a stop, and using her cane to stand and walk off the cart, she turns around to give Clay one last wrinkled yet charming smile before she said, “take care of him, will you?”

Before Clay could ask any questions, the doors shut. Maybe she had just been a figment of his imagination, because that interaction felt mystical.

____________________

“Fucking _finally,”_ George sighs, “do you have food? Please say you have food.”

Clay kicks the door shut and looks over at George, who had flour on his cheeks and, as it turned out, the entire apartment was thick with a fog-like smoke. Clay coughed. “Yes, George, I have food. Here, you animal, enjoy.” He offered out a plastic bag with takeout containers within it to George who snatched the bag from him and scuttled off with it like some hybrid crab. Clay laughed fondly. What a guy.

“Hey, save some for me!” Clay cried as he chased George to the dining table. “Geeeoooorrrgggeeee,” he whined dramatically, trying to grab some takeout containers from him as he leaned over the table to try and wrestle them out of his hands.

“Don’t _say_ it like that,” George huffed through a mouthful of food. “Imagine if I was always like ClaaaaAAaaAAaaAAay!”

At that, Clay nearly spat out his pizza as he literally snorted with laughter. “Do it again, George,” Clay wheezed, looking over at George to find him equally amused. His eyes sparkled with the dim light of the lamp lit across the room. “PLEASE, do that again-”

“CLaaaaAAAAY!”

The two of them continued on with their usual shenanigans, nearly choking on their pizza at how hard they were laughing. It was cold and snowing outside, yet Clay felt warm in here, thanks to the thick smoke and George’s contagious smile-

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, FUCKIN’ QUEERS!” was the sudden shout of their older, not-so-nice neighbor, who felt the need to pound his fist on their shared wall and shout such a thing.

For a second, George and Clay stared at each other in stunned silence. Usually, it was Nick who would get the guy to pound on the wall, but this time, it was completely them. Nick would be so proud.

George stood and with a confidence he didn’t know he even had, he shouted right back, “YEAH, I’M GAY, AND I’LLSTILL FUCK YOUR BITCH!”

Clay thought he actually busted a _lung_ at that. George standing there, shouting directly at a wall. “Are you- are you _drunk?”_ Clay finally asks as he had no idea George even had that in him.

George thinks about it. “Maybe a teeny-tiny bit.”

Turns out it was a little more than a teeny-tiny bit as George passed out asleep in his uncomfortable dining room chair that Clay had gotten for free from off the side of the road.

By the time Clay managed to drag George over to bed, the clock just ticked to midnight, right as Clay was coming over to crawl into bed beside his dozing friend.

“Merry Christmas,” he murmurs, clicking off the lamp beside him and closing his eyes.

“Merry Christmas,” George whispers back, and a small smile finds Clay’s face before he drifts to sleep to the sound of George’s slow breaths.

____________________

_I have this weird thing about me that I can’t cry. I haven’t cried since I was ten years old when my parents divorced, and it’s my biggest insecurity._

The words Dream wrote for George to read last night floated through his half-drunk dreams.

_I know that sounds like a dumb thing to be insecure about, but no matter how sad I am or how sad something is, I just can’t cry. I wonder if some day, there will be something that breaks me and I’ll just cry forever._

Dream’s voice echoed in George’s sleep, low and soft and lulling, like a lullaby. The dream was feverish and half-dream half-stream-of-consciousness as all there really was to it was colors, fading in and out, colors of yellow and blue and shades of white and gray.

 _That’s not dumb,_ George remembered himself writing back, _not at all. I actually have an irrational fear that I can’t scream. Like, I can playfully shout and stuff, but nothing has ever scared me so bad that I’ve actually had a truly-terrified scream for my life. So what if when I need to scream, my voice just dies?_

Suddenly remembering that he was in a dream, George opened his eyes and stared at the blobs of colors that slowly were forming to create something suspiciously familiar to a human face, a face that was embedded in his mind with eyes like his and a nose like his father’s-

George opened his mouth and tried to scream, but no sound escaped. He tried again, but the sound screeched to a halt once it escaped from his mouth. His vocal chords felt like they were ripping apart, combusting into nothing as George was left with his mouth open and silent, like a fish out of water and then suddenly-

“George! Wake up, sleepy head.”

Disoriented, George cracked open his eyes to see Clay hovering above him with a wide, childlike grin bright on his face.

After a few seconds of confusion, George echoed Clay’s wide smile and rubbed his eyes clear of the sleep he’d been torn from. “Merry Christmas,” George rasps, allowing Clay to drag him upwards onto his feet.

“Come on, come on! Let’s open presents,” Clay insists as he literally pushed George out of the bedroom and into the main space where the small, pathetic tree they were able to lug into Clay’s apartment was lit up with a few presents beneath it.

“You’re like a child,” George huffs, but there wasn’t an inch of malice in him as he too was excited to open gifts. For a moment, his mind flashed to his family’s home, and how they must’ve opened their presents already. He wondered if they missed him, or if they even noticed he’d been gone. Eventually, his mother had stopped trying to call him after so many blocked calls. He imagined how the tree must look as every year they got a 7-foot, fluffy tree filled with lights and ornaments with memories and photos and a tree stuffed with presents.

But George blinked, and the image faded to show Clay, face illuminated by the dollar-store tree lights lit on a shitty, near-dead tree weighed down with the few ornaments they managed to hang on it. Instead of reminiscing further, George smiled. He couldn’t ask for anything more.

George sat beside Clay and tugged out the few presents they had under there. Nick decided to wrap his presents with tinfoil and though they weren’t labeled, it turns out that it didn’t matter as Nick had given them-

“SAPNAP, WHAT THE FUCK?!” George screeched over the phone as he had immediately dialed for their friend upon opening his horrible, horrible present that made Clay laugh so hard that he literally was rolling on the floor.

_“Geez, George, its’ still early here-”_

“WHAT THE FUCK, WHY WOULD YOU GIVE ME-”

 _“Oh, did you open your present yet?”_ Nick almost sounded innocent.

“Yes, I did, you idiot! I think you killed Clay!”

George held the phone over to Clay, who only wheezed into the speaker, making Nick only laugh harder.

_“What, you’re saying you didn’t tell me you wanted a dildo for Christmas?”_

“I NEVER said that!” George wailed, his face flushing as Clay laughed yet harder _if possible._ He had moved on from wheezing to silently choking on air.

 _“Sure, sure. Well, my family is going to start opening gifts, so have fun, you guys. But not too much fun without me, alright?”  
_ “Merry Christmas you horny cretin,” George says, sending poor Clay further into his insanity as, upon opening his own tinfoil-wrapped gift, he realized it was matching to George’s gift.

Once they hung up on Nick and Clay calmed down a little bit, they decided to move on to the actual presents that were wrapped nicer than tinfoil, but not _much_ nicer.

Clay opened his gifts from George first. The first was a container of hot chocolate mix with a sticky note over the title of _not-shitty hot chocolate mix_ to elude to the time Clay bought that really shitty hot chocolate mix earlier in the week. The next gift was thin, wide, and rectangular, which after glancing in question to George who waved at him to open it, he tore open the paper to find that it was-

“A record?” Clay asks, turning the Beatles’ Abbey Road album over in his hands. Another album slipped into his lap, which, with the cover of a baby swimming towards a dollar bill, revealed it was Nirvana’s Nevermind album. “George, you’re actually the worst,” Clay deadpans as he looks to George with complete amusement in his eyes. “You win! Worst present ever-”

“Not so fast,” George interrupts, motioning to one remaining present under the tree. Clay eyes him with suspicion before he takes it, wipes the pine needles from the cover of it, and rips off the wrapping paper. He stares at the box and audibly gasps once he realizes the contents: a record player.

“George,” Clay starts in disbelief, “woah, this is… this is awesome! I’ve always wanted a record player, how did you know?”  
George grins at him and just shrugs modestly, “eh, just a hunch.”

Clay thinks of the time he brought his anonymous notebook friend to the record shop. His anonymous notebook friend who _definitely_ was a girl. She had to be.

“Well, are you ready to see your present?” Clay asks suddenly as, in fact, he didn’t have any presents under the tree for George. Despite this, George hadn’t questioned it at all. George glances up from where he had been setting up the record player across the room.

“Oh, sure,” George says absently as he props the record player up on Clay’s dresser across from his bed.

“It’s outside, though, so you better get some shoes on,” Clay states casually as he stuffs his socked feet into shoes, not bothering to change out of his ridiculous Christmas pajamas (George and Nick had matching pairs).

“What exactly did you _get_ me?” George asks breathlessly as he jogs to catch up with Clay as he locks the door behind both of them. Clay only smiled.

“You’ll see.”

Despite all of George’s whining and begging to tell him what his present was, Clay didn’t heed. But, George’s incessant pleading silenced once the elevator brought them down to the underground garage.

“You’re starting to scare me, Clay,” George says with a nervous laugh, but Clay only walks on, around the corner of the dimly-lit parking garage, passing car after car until he stopped at a large, white sprinter van that just barely fit under the size limit of the parking space. In confusion, George looked left and right for whatever this present was.

“Okay, close your eyes,” Clay insists, and George shoots him a look. “Trust me,” Clay goes on eagerly, and George just cups his hands over his own eyes before Clay placed both of his hands on either of George’s shoulders and gently steers him towards the van. Clay fumbled with his car keys, unlocked the van, and slid open the back door to reveal a renovated inside of the van complete with a pull-out bed in the back, blankets strewn over it and little succulent plants adorning the dashboard. Small, twinkly lights snaked around the interior. “Alright, you can open them,” Clay says, voice a little nervous. Slowly, George did so.

He gasped and looked from Clay to the van and back to Clay and back to the van. “Holy- Clay, you did this for _me?”_

Clay looked down at George, whose bright eyes were sparkling with the lights in the van, his smile wide and true. “Yeah,” Clay says a little breathlessly, “yeah, I did… my dad has this van and he said I could borrow it for a small road trip, so I thought that because we both don’t have much to do, we could drive down to my mom’s in Florida, and you could pick somewhere for us to drive for the New Year. We still have a few weeks before school starts.. but if you don’t wanna do that, it’s fine, I get it, it’s kind of lame I guess-”

Clay’s train of thought was abruptly pulled to a stop as George leapt forward and practically clung to him in a hug. “It’s perfect, Clay,” George murmured into his shoulder, “really, this is the best thing anyone has ever given to me..”

“Really?! I’m so glad,” Clay murmured back, and though their voices were soft, Clay was smiling so widely like the happy idiot he was. He couldn’t stop smiling at the thought of the two of them, traveling across the east coast, stopping wherever their hearts desired, opening the roof to look at the stars and fall asleep and wake up to each other. It would be good for George, and it would be good for him, too.

Of course, the only complication was his mystery notebook girl. Clay decided that George was priority number one, and he was already prepared to pick up the notebook from the book store and write a small explanation saying that he would return in a week or so, hoping to anything that they didn’t slip from his fingers.

“Ready to make some shitty cinnamon rolls?” George asks, breaking the silence as well as the embrace as he looks up to Clay with eyes full of festive excitement.

“Hell yeah, you bet I am. Race you!” Locking the van behind him, Clay took off in an instant towards the elevator with his feet pattering loud echos through the parking lot, and distantly, he could hear George’s loud laughter behind him.

“Clay! Wait! That’s not fair, you idiot-”

Clay ended up getting to the apartment first, but in the end, George was the real winner as he was the one who got to eat the extra cinnamon roll.

____________________

“Clay, be reasonable.”

“You know that’s not in my ability.”

Clay watched as George peeked out from behind his hiding spot behind a tree, but it was pointless; his fate was sealed. The two had decided to frolic in Central Park, which was currently packed to the brim with kids running about in the freshly-falling snow. Trying to sled down the main hill in the park was futile as it was practically a sea of people over there, so they decided to find a somewhat-empty portion of the park covered in trees where the two decided to engage in a very intense snowball fight.

“Oh Geooooorge,” Clay singsongs as he tosses his massive snowball from hand to hand, feet crunching on the snow as he edged closer and closer. “Come out come out, I promise I won’t hurt you. Badly.”

As he was only met with silence, Clay lunged forward, gripped hold of the base of the wide tree, and swung his head around fully expecting to find George huddled behind there with a pile of awaiting snow, so he braced himself. But he only found the area empty.

“George?” he says quickly before he even thinks to turn around, but it was too late anyway. Some sort of a battle-cry (no, more like battle-screech) sounded behind him as George leapt almost out of thin air and next thing Clay knew, there was a whole load of snow behind dumped down the back of his hoodie. Clay actually shrieked so high-pitched that it nearly rivaled George’s screech as he wiggled and danced about to try and get the snow from out of his clothing. It felt almost as if it burned against his skin, hot and cold mixing to form an awful burning sensation.

“Oh you little- get back here, you British bitch!” Clay shouts, but George was already taking off, despite his recently rolled ankle. Clay took off after him, and George shrieked, clearly trying to will his legs to run fast enough for him to take cover behind his tree, but with Clay’s long, quick legs, he caught up to his friend within two or three strides and lunged at him to tackle him into the snow. Immediately, the two of them tumble into the piles of fresh powdery snow, and despite George’s previous screeches of terror, they were now both laughing so hard as the snow fell around them, the rest of the world fading away as they were the only two people that mattered within it.

“Got you,” Clay mutters, rubbing snow into George’s hair. George makes a face at him.

“Yeah whatever, you’re the one with snow down your shirt,” George fires back, to which Clay only raises a challenging brow,   
“What, you wanna match?” George’s eyes widen in fear,   
“no, no, Clay, no!”

“Revenge!!”

Long story short, after much wrestling and shouting and screaming and laughing, George ended up with plenty of snow down his shirt to declare them even. They had moved on from their snowball fight to building a pathetic, lopsided snowman to laying on their backs and staring at the winter sky. They were both freezing and shivering, but neither wanted to go back inside.

“Clay, hold still,” George says suddenly as Clay hears rustling next to him in the snow, His eyes dart to the side to see George holding his light blue Polaroid camera in his hands. One eye was squinted shit while the other was widen behind the camera, and as instructed, Clay looked back up at the sky to maintain the pose he had been holding before.

After a dim flash of the camera and the small whirring sound of the picture being printed, Clay turned his head to look over to George in question. “Why are you taking that? We won’t be separating this year.” Clay and George had formed a habit of taking Polaroid photos for each other and mailing them over the summer when Clay was still in the city or Florida and George was in Britain.

“Just so I remember this,” George says, and though the sentence was simple, it had a lot of meaning to Clay.

“Alright then. You lay down too,” Clay insists, and without question, George laid down, looked up at the sky, and didn’t flinch as the light of the Polaroid flashed at him. “There, now we both can remember,” Clay murmurs as he holds the developing pictures in his hands. Maybe he just imagined it, but he swears he can feel George’s hand bump against his as he said,

“Perfect.”

Yeah, George was right.

This moment was perfect.

____________________

Once George was back in the apartment and Clay went out with the excuse to get some more marshmallows from the grocery store, he quickly hurried down the street with a pen heavy in his coat pocket (and a second pen in case that one wore out).

His scarf felt tight around his neck and his sweater felt too itchy as fear started to settle its claws deep into his skin. He was afraid that this delicate chance was slipping through his fingers, a chance he had never quite grasped. A chance that was so close he could almost taste it, so close that he had begun signing his letters with the words “love, Dream.” Even if she didn’t respond the same, that was okay, she could take as much time as she needed. But what if she didn’t wait up for Clay? What if she would never sign her letters with the word “love” and couldn’t care less about this entire building relationship?

 _For George,_ Clay reminded himself as his breath fogged in the air, _you’re doing this for George._

After much convincing the Christmas elf standing outside the closed book store (it was closed due to it being Christmas Day, of course), Clay burst into the book store and went straight to that section he had memorized by heart. And, surely enough, settled between two novels of J. D. Sallinger was the yellow notebook. Without hesitation, Clay pulled the book from the shelf and flipped through to a blank page. They were almost three quarters through. He smiled to himself. He never was able to completely fill a notebook of his own, but something told him this time would be different.

However, he was met with a small surprise.

There was already a note waiting for him.

_Hi, Dream. I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas._

_I’m just writing this note to let you know that I’m going to be gone for a few weeks._

_My friend decided to surprise me with a road trip down the east coast. Crazy, right? This Christmas break is really turning up!_

_I hope you’ll still be here when I’m back. In the meantime, why don’t you tell me about anything of your choice? Something you care about, or something you think I should care about?_

Clay dropped the book.

Fuck.

____________________

_My friend decided to surprise me with a road trip._

_Down the east coast._

_Gone for a few weeks._

How did Clay not know?

It had been so painfully obvious that it was actually laughable.

Slowly, the cold daggers of realization settled in.

Clay picked up the dropped notebook on the ground and flipped through it feverishly for something, anything of a clue. Now he knew why the handwriting was so familiar, why the way the words were written seemed so _familiar._

Now he understood why this person just _magically_ knew all of the references he made, why they could read him like a book, literally. The image of a girl Clay made in his head immediately shattered into nothing and was replaced with George. George, who loved Minecraft and records and ice skating and sunsets…

George, who cried in Clay’s arms because he was gay and his family wasn’t as okay with it as they should be.

George, whose eyes shined so brightly in the lights of the Christmas tree, and even brighter with the lights of the van Clay had surprised him with.

George, who wrote to Clay about his biggest and smallest and stupidest fears.

Clay felt overwhelmed with the crushing realizations. It was so obvious. He was so _stupid._

But Clay wasn’t gay.

No.

Clay was _straight._ Right?

The notebook felt so heavy in his hands. Heavier than the dilemma of what he should do with this new discovery.

Why _now?_ Why did he have to figure this out now that they were going to be in a sprinter van together, with nowhere to go and nowhere for Clay to hide from himself anymore?

As Clay walked home from the bookstore, the Christmas spirit thick in the snow-filled air, he made up his mind. He wouldn’t say a word about the yellow notebook to George until they were back. He imagined every scenario, none ending well until they returned to New York.

He imagined George with his eyes wide in disappointment once he realized that this was the guy he had been writing to and not whatever dashing, tall, handsome one he’d conjured in his mind.

Yeah, he could keep a secret from George.

“Hi, Clay,” George said cheerfully from the couch as Clay nudged the door shut. “Did you get the marshmallows? Also, I’m watching another shitty Hallmark movie if you want to join.”

Clay looked at George, sweet George, with his socked feet propped on the side of the couch where Clay would normally be. Clay realized he’d been staring at George for too long before he swallowed nervously and just shook his head. “Oh, um, sorry, I forgot,” he stammers, looking away quickly.

“Oh… okay. Are you alright?”

“Yeah!” Clay says too loudly, too quickly. George’s expression furrows with suspicion. “I’m just… cold. You know what? I’m gonna go shower. Yeah. I’ll join you later, alright?”  
“O…kay?” George responds, brows raising more and more.

Even as Clay’s back was pressed to the cool surface of his own closed bedroom door, he could only hear the same sentence written in George’s shitty writing playing in his mind again, and again, and again:

_Are you brave?_


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all I can say is that shit goes down

**_George_ **

George fell asleep on the couch that night for the first time in days.

It wasn’t that Clay exiled him or something, but he might as well have. While Clay had been in the shower, George dozed off on the couch and woke up there as well. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed when he didn’t wake up to the sight of Clay’s bedroom’s ceiling. But, he did wake up to a blanket over him that he didn’t quite remember pulling over himself last night.

George had known Clay for years. He knew him like the back of his hand, and he knew he was acting _weird._ He figured Clay was hiding something from him, but he also figured that there was a reason Clay didn’t want to be prodded about it, so George would leave him alone.

He was sure it would come out, anyway, as they were going to be together with no escape for the next week or so.

George felt the distant ache of missing Dream, missing his words and missing his stories, missing the feeling of laying on his bed at night when Clay was fast asleep and writing back to him, eyes closing and dreaming of what he imagined the mysterious guy looked like.

All George could hope for was that Dream would wait for him.

“Ready to go?” George looked over his shoulder to see Clay standing there, both duffle bags in hand and a wide smile on his face.

“Yeah,” George responds, about to turn around from Clay’s room but eyeing the blue polaroid sitting on the dresser. He grabbed it and placed it at the top of his bag, and pointed it out to Clay, “we should take pictures every time we stop somewhere nice,” he suggests. Clay nods in agreement, and with one last look to Clay’s apartment that was already packed full with memories they had made this week, they were on their way down to the van.

____________________

They settled on driving at least 9 or ten hours a day as it took roughly 19 hours to get down to Florida, but at this rate, they would never make it. They were good for the first three hours as they sat with matching cups of coffee that Clay hated but decided he physically needed to stay awake at 6 in the morning. George read George Orwell to him, and surprisingly, Clay didn’t object at all.

But, after reading to Clay for hours, they decided to move on to a much more fun (and dangerous) activity: teaching George to drive.

“Press your foot a little bit harder on the gas pedal,” Clay instructs him calmly from the passenger’s side. George gulps and does so. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles had turned white. His eyes were glued firmly to the wide, deserted highway that they were currently going about twenty miles under the speed limit. Once George applied more pressure to the pedal, the van shoots forward without warning, causing the succulent plants to tremor on the dashboard and for Clay to grip the sides of his seat in shock. George, on the other hand, frankly shrieked and fumbled for the break, but instead pressed the gas. The problem was, they were getting closer and closer to the lone car, an innocent Volkswagen, that had previously been an insignificant dot in their vision but was becoming bigger and bigger.

“Clay, Clay, Clay, I can’t get it to stop,” George says in fear as his foot seemed to be frozen on the gas. His eyes were glued to the road and the car that was getting closer, closer, closer-

Until he felt a pair of big, warm hands over his own, and for a second, he flickered his eyes downward to realize that these were, in fact, Clay’s hands over his to coax him to tranquility. He didn’t have to look to know that Clay was looking at him with a soft expression.

“George, just relax. Bring your foot to the left pedal and press it, but not too quickly.” It was almost as if he was hypnotized by Clay’s soothing and calm voice. As instructed, he pressed his foot against the break pedal and felt the pressure of the van skidding to a stop.

Once the van was completely stopped, they both looked to each other with wide eyes. “I almost pissed myself,” Clay admitted in a still-calm voice, and for some reason, that was the breaking point as they both just _died_ with laughter despite the fact they were still stopped in the center of a highway.

“Pissbaby,” George wheezes between fits of laughter, but he noticed something as he eyed his own hands on the steering wheel: he wasn’t gripping it as hard anymore.

Without another word, they resumed their usual positions with George in the passenger’s seat tossing jelly beans into Clay’s mouth, who was driving once again.

____________________

“We’re so small,” George says suddenly. George can hear Clay’s head turning against the blanket to look at the side of his face. The two had stopped at a very empty trailer park for the night off the side of the road where, they discovered, the stars were beautiful and untainted by light pollution. They ended up laying on the roof of the van, blankets spread along the top of it and over them as it was quite freezing. They look at the stars for a second more of silence before Clay says,

“No, _you’re_ small.”

George smacks his arm as Clay laughed like the arrogant guy he was. “Oh my God, shut _up._ I just meant that we’re so tiny and insignificant. I mean, look at all the stars. What if each one had its own solar system?”

Instead of making fun of George for having such a sudden, deep stream of consciousness, Clay just hummed in agreement. “Most of these stars died years ago, and this is just the light traveling to us.”

George shakes his head as he squints to look closer at the stars, “I know. It makes me feel even smaller!”

That pulls a soft chuckle from Clay who George swore he could feel scoot a tiny bit closer to him, before halting. George frowned slightly as he had expected him to get close to him and ask for cuddles jokingly for George to reject him. But the moment never came.

George could feel the weight between them expand.

So maybe this was why he said, “Clay, can you sing?” He turned his head to look at Clay, whose irritatingly perfect side profile was lit by the dim glow of the stars. Clay turned to face him and suddenly, the breath was nocked from George’s lungs, because he could see all the stars in Clay’s eyes. He couldn’t tell any of them apart, or sort out constellations, but they were all in Clay’s eyes, right there for him to see.

“No,” Clay says almost immediately, breaking their mesmerizing gaze and looking back up to the sky. George frowned. “But I can if you want me to.”

“I want you to,” George urges gently.

There were a few moments of silence, and George was ready to prod Clay again, but it turned out he didn’t need to as the silence was, once more, broken by Clay’s voice.

 _“Look at the stars,”_ he sang, _“look how they shine for you, and everything you do.”_ George’s brows raised. He thought Clay was going to sing something stupid, and be really bad at singing so they could both laugh at him, but he was _very_ wrong. At first, Clay’s voice was a bit crackly, but as he continued to sing, his voice was smoother and relaxing and low and perfect…

“Well, keep going,” George insists eagerly, his eyes still locked onto Clay’s face as if it held the secrets of the world. But George didn’t need to look at the world around him. He was looking at his entire world right now.

Clay gave a nervous laugh before he continued to sing. _“Yeah they were all green.”_

George’s brows furrow in confusion, even more so once Clay was laughing and laughing until he made himself wheeze. “What’s so funny? It’s supposed to be _yellow,_ not _green_ you dumbass.”

“What’s it matter?’ Clay wheezes, actually clutching his stomach from laughing so hard, “it’s not like you can tell the difference.”

“Oh my _God,”_ George wheezes back, “that’s, that’s not funny-” But he was laughing anyway, and as they came down from their laughing high, both panting and breathless, Clay resumed his soft singing.

_“I came along, I wrote a song for you, and all the things you do. And it was all yellow.”_

As Clay continued to sing, George moved his gaze from Clay’s starlit face and back up to the twinkling stars. Who knew Clay had such a nice voice? From time to time, he would change “yellow” for “green” and they’d both giggle. But there was one part of the song that ran a chill through George’s bones.

_“Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones_

_Turn into something beautiful_

_You know, you know I love you so.”_

George dared to look over to Clay, who he was shocked to find was already looking at him.

_“You know I love you so.”_

After that line, Clay silenced, his eyes wide with the stars and the whole universe within them, and though the verse he had just sung had been higher, Clay’s voice had went from sounding soothing and low and warm to sounding… pretty.

There was something about the weight of the words unsaid and the weight of the words Clay had sung that made the world feel all too-real in the moment as George couldn’t take his eyes from Clay’s. He wanted to kiss him. The thought popped in his head before he could stop it. He imagined how he’d do it: how he’d roll on top of Clay and kiss him breathless, kiss him to pause and see the stars in his eyes, and feel his war hands on his back but not feel obliged to jump away from the touch.

Then he blinked, and suddenly, he was back in the cold, real world.

It was almost as if Clay could see his thoughts through his eyes, because not a second later, Clay was sitting up and taking the blanket with him as he muttered something about going back inside.

It was the cold, hard truth.

But maybe George wanted to live in a world of yellow. A world of yellow notebooks and yellow glow from the stars shining on the universe sitting beside him. _His_ universe.

Maybe this was something that was far, far too late for George to discover as he crawled back into the van to find Clay dead asleep in the middle of the bed.

 _Shit,_ he thinks, _I’m in love with him, aren’t I?_

____________________

George woke up to the van moving and rain instead of the charming snow that was back in New York.

Even though the stars weren’t in the sky anymore, George could still hear Clay’s singing voice in his head.

“Morning,” Clay says from where he was sitting behind the steering wheel. George sits up lazily from bed and clambers across the van to sit in the front seat.

“Hi,” George responds, forehead leaning against the cold glass of the window as his eyes followed the trails of rain drops that slid down the glass one after the other.

They ended up driving to a Denny’s for breakfast, but despite the occasional jokes, the tension was still so, so heavy in the air. It was there when George would reach for something in the cupholder and Clay would flinch. It was there when their hands brushed and Clay would yank his hand back.

George felt the pit in his stomach swell every time something like that happened. It could be something as simple as the glance of their eyes, and the quick dart of Clay’s eyes away from his. Clay was a strong-willed person, and it was clear in his piercing gaze. He wasn’t the type to look away. But here he was, looking away.

Then, George pieced together a false conclusion, but the only one that made sense.

_Is it because… I’m…_

George gulps.

He looked back to the rain-covered landscape and visibly swallowed, his cheek leaned against his palm and eyes flickering as he followed street lamps and signs with his eyes as the sun progressively sunk lower and lower in the sky until it was about a half hour away from setting. It was then that George realized he’d had enough.

“Clay,” he says suddenly, turning over to Clay with a resolved expression, “stop the van.”

“What?” Clay asked, sounding alarmed, “why, is everything okay?”

“Yes,” George goes on nervously, “everything is fine, just… stop, please.”

Though he cast George a worried, concerned glance, Clay did as he said. He pulled the van to the side of the road and slowed to a stop.

“What is it?” Clay finally asks as he turns the keys back to whirr the engine to shut off. George gulped. He took a breath, and remembered that no matter what, he and Clay were best friends. They could get through anything.

“I guess I’m just… listen, you can start the car and keep driving if you don’t want to talk about this, but… I want you to know that I’m worried about you.” The word, the fateful word seemed to ignite something in Clay as his previous, tired eyes were lit in something indescribable. George continued as if he were walking on eggshells as he said, “and… you’ve been acting kind of weird, and I noticed, but I didn’t want to say anything because if you wanted to talk about it you would’ve, but…” George’s voice trailed off as he realized he couldn’t look in Clay’s eyes anymore. He was too afraid of what he’d see. So instead, he looked at his lap. “You’re scaring me, Clay.”

George didn’t have to look up to know the look in Clay’s eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clay said coldly, and George looked up in shock. That was the voice of someone he didn’t recognize. That wasn’t _Clay_ who said that, it couldn’t be-

But it was, because there he was, eyes steely and more cold than the temperatures outside of this van, his hands gripping the steering wheel hard and jaw clenched tight. George gave him a disbelieving look once he heard the click of the keys to start the engine once more. George clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes at his friend, who looked away from him without further word.

“Okay, you don’t have to talk about it,” George said, voice slowly becoming more and more irritated, “but I don’t want you to flat-out lie to me, so-”

“Oh, so I’m the one lying, now?” Clay looked to him with eyes wide, but this time they weren’t filled with stars and a yellow glow. They were filled with George’s reflection and something dark. Clay flicked the keys back to turn off the engine. Oh, so _now_ he wanted to talk?

George laughed. It was heartless and bitter. “What the hell does _that_ mean, Clay? Why don’t you elaborate?”

Clay scoffs. “I seriously don’t know what you’re on about, George.”

“What _I’m_ on about? Seriously, Clay, you can be _so_ ridiculous sometimes-”

“ _I’m_ the ridiculous one now? Oh _please_ George, you’re the king of being ridiculous-”

“Don’t be such a child-”

“Don’t act like you’re so much better-”

“Is it because I’m gay?”

In an instant, their bickering stopped. The silence sunk its talons into the atmosphere and suddenly, the words boomeranged back to George in a painful, harsh blow. Clay’s eyes flickered from their terrible darkness for just a second, but they were quick to shift back to that ugly, unrecognizable color that George couldn’t name.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Clay says, his voice raising, but George doesn’t flinch. “Are you _fucking-_ seriously? You’re really trying to make me look like some dipshit, aren’t you?”

George gulps, but he can’t look away from Clay’s eyes. The rain was falling so much harder now. “Look, Clay,” George says, the guilt sinking in, “I didn’t-”

“What, you didn’t mean it?” Clay broke their gaze and his lips turned up into what would normally look like a smile, but at the moment, it was nothing more than a malice, empty expression. “Yeah, whatever George. Who’s the one lying now?”

That lit something in George that had been dying down: anger. “Why can’t you just tell me what’s wrong?” His voice was so loud, so angry, so hurt and so confused the he didn’t recognize himself.

Clay’s head snapped to the side. He looked blank. George retreated, and he shriveled in on himself, but Clay didn’t do the same. “You want to know what’s wrong?” he repeats, but he didn’t raise his voice back at George. That made it so much worse. George just gulps and looks back at him without a trace of expression.

Clay slips from his seat and walks to the back of the van, and George’s eyes follow him. Clay leans over, rustles around his duffle, before he pulls something out. He seemed to hesitate for a second before he turned around.

He held a yellow notebook.

All color drained from George’s face.

He looked from the notebook, back to Clay, back to the notebook. It couldn’t be a coincidence. He had memorized how the bottom corner of the book had been folded, how the first page had a small tear, how the bookmark was on the far end of the book from where it had been filled with words.

Clay tossed the notebook into George’s lap, and George looked at it in disbelief. There was so much to process at once that he instead processed nothing. He couldn’t.

“Clay, you-”

“Yes, George,” Clay says, and instead of sounding angry, he just sounded tired. “It’s me. I’m Dream.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I suggest listening to the song "Falling" by Harry Styles before reading this chapter because it really sets the vibe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> most authors: *update weekly*  
> me: you wanna see some real speed bitch-

At this point, Clay had seen every facial expression possible on George’s face: sadness, anger, pure joy, irritation.

But this was a new one he couldn’t quite identify, the look on George’s face once the truth, in the form of a well-loved yellow notebook, fell right in his lap.

“You, you’re,” George whispers, his eyes growing wider and wider as he looked down at the notebook in his lap. He clenches his jaw. “How long have you known?”

Clay sighs a little and leans against the side of the van, “since the night before you left when you wrote the note about going on a road trip with me.” Though Clay stated it simply, he still hadn’t fully processed the situation. He had said so _much_ in that notebook, he had been so stupid and vulnerable in ways he found it hard to be face-to-face, which was probably why his first (and only) relationship was a fail. It was a miracle he hadn’t chased George out of his life, yet, but it seemed that this might do the trick.

Clay felt sick. He felt sick, thinking that the image of the girl who wrote these things was never real, and it had always been George. He felt _angry,_ even, because god _dammit,_ he was so stupid to get his hopes up. He was so _stupid_ to think that the universe wouldn’t kick him to the ground and laugh.

George looked down at his own lap silently, and his brows were drawn together in an emotion Clay still couldn’t identify. Clay gulped. Why was he being so quiet? Why couldn’t he say something, anything?

It was so much easier in the notebook. It was so much easier living in a fantasy that didn’t _have_ to become real, but now it was real, and it was ugly and painful and nothing like Clay had made up in his head.

Clay almost felt mad about how wordless George was being.

But the anger was only masking a larger emotion.

“I just…” George starts, “don’t know what to say.”

“It’s… not a big deal,” Clay finds himself saying, and he didn’t know why he said it, because this was a _huge_ deal. He got his hopes up— started actually opening up to this figment of a person, a _girl_ who didn’t exist— and now he was sitting here saying it was nothing?

“It isn’t?” George snaps back, and for the first time in the past few minutes, George looked Clay dead in the eyes. Clay hadn’t realized how long they had been sitting here, for the sun was now completely set and the sky was dark and starless, making the cold settle into the van. If this were any other night, George and Clay would be curled on the couch right about now, watching Hallmark movies and throwing popcorn at each other, or screaming at each other over a game of Minecraft.

But they were fighting for the first time, and Clay already was tired of it.

“Well, why should it be, George?” Clay says, not breaking George’s surprisingly piercing gaze. “I’m Dream. It’s me, surprise. We both fell in love with the idea of someone who didn’t exist. What’s the point of elaborating? It’s over, it’s done. We might as well acknowledge that and move on.”

“You-” George starts with a voice so sharp that Clay actually flinched in fear that the words would penetrate his skin like tiny daggers, but in an instant, the tone of George’s face dropped to something softer and weaker as he almost whispered, “you don’t know that.”  
“What?” Clay whispers back. He leaned forward in his seat. “What do you-”

“You don’t know that I fell in love with someone who isn’t real,” George says, voice louder but still weak. He broke their eye contact to look at the floor. “The person I love, they’re…” He looks back up at Clay with eyes full of so much pain that Clay could swim in it, “they’re so real, Clay.” George’s voice dropped to a whisper. “So real.”

A shadow fell over George’s face, and he hung his head in defeat as if he was giving in to life. Maybe he was. Clay was stunned as he tried to analyze the words given to him, but he found that it was much harder to pick apart words that weren’t written on a page. “You… you don’t mean…”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” George interrupts with a voice full of warning. “Just… just don’t, Clay. You said it yourself, we might as well just let this-” he motions between the two of them, “whatever it is- we should let it go. It was never going to-” He cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter.”

 _It does matter,_ Clay wanted to say, and he felt as if the words were burning him from where they sat in his mouth. Burning him inside out. _It matters to me, so much. I just don’t know how to tell you that._

George stayed like that for a long time. His head held between his hands, eyes closed and breaths slow. If Clay didn’t know better, he’d think George was asleep. But eventually, it seemed he gathered enough strength to drag himself to the back of the van without so much as another glance in Clay’s direction as he sat himself down on the pullout bed. Clay turned the keys in the ignition and watched as the van slowly lit up once again.

When they got to the motel in North Carolina, they still didn’t say a word to each other. They took their respective duffels, went into the room silently, and took their showers one after the other. Thankfully, there were two separate beds. By the time Clay was out of the shower, George was already asleep. Or maybe he was just pretending to be.

Clay was about to bid George goodnight, but he bit his tongue and fell asleep to silence. He had forgotten what a bed felt like when there was only one person in it.

It was so much colder.

____________________

The first one to break their silence was George. They had both been awake for about a half hour, only interactions being the ones where they brushed past each other while going about their morning routines. Even then, there was as little contact as possible.

“Clay,” George said from the main room, and Clay walked out of the bathroom in mild surprise to hear that familiar, wonderful voice he had missed way more than he realized. George was sitting on the edge of his bed with a packed duffel sitting beside him. He looked a little tired. Did he rest as little as Clay did?

“Yeah?” Clay responds, still patting his face dry from washing and shaving.

“I figured I should go home for the New Year, so I got myself a plane ticket to Britain,” he states, as if this were a mere fact and not a narrative that would crush Clay whole. “And… well, I need a ride to the airport.”

“Okay,” Clay says, even though he wanted to say a lot more than that. It took every ounce of his composure to keep his face still, yet George mirrored it without visible difficulty.

“I figured it would be better if we had some time apart, to think,” George continues on. When had he even had the _time_ to get those tickets? Had it been when he was in the back seat silently when Clay had driven them to the motel? “And I ought to visit my family anyway.”  
“Sounds like a good idea,” Clay agrees emotionlessly. _No, it doesn’t,_ his mind screams at him as he thinks of George, just a few days ago, sobbing into his chest because he was so terrified of facing his family. And now, Clay had backed him into a corner, a corner where this was his only escape.

“There’s one more thing I should tell you about.” George was biting his lip, and his hands fiddled with the bedsheet he was sitting on. Clay felt his mouth run dry. “I’m studying abroad in London next semester, so I thought it would be good to just… be in the neighborhood, you know?”

“Oh.” Clay looks down at his hands. “That’s… really cool. You’ll have to send me lots of pictures.”

“I will,” George responds, and Clay just has to get one last look at him. The early morning sunlight creeped between the slits in the blinds and illuminated his eyes like gold.

He looked so beautiful, so calm.

But his eyes told a different story.

____________________

“Here’s your stop,” Clay states. He hoped George didn’t hear the tremor in his voice as he pulled the van to the curb of the bustling airport. Bustling full of people, a crowd that George wasn’t supposed to be part of.

“Thanks for driving me here.” The expression felt robotic, like a formality instead of something that held real meaning. Clay heard the click of George’s seatbelt, and realized right then that this would be their last moment together for months. Maybe forever, depending if George wanted Clay in his life when he came back.

Christmas music was playing on the car radio as a background, and upon further listening, Clay realized that it was “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carrey. Just days ago, the two of them screamed the lyrics to that song after dropping off Nick at the airport. The universe really was cruel, because all Clay could think about was how George told him about how this was his favorite Christmas song in the notebook.

“Well… goodbye, then,” George says slowly and awkwardly, and he was moving further and further from Clay to open the van door. Clay’s stomach tightened.

“Wait,” he says, sounding so desperate he wanted to kick himself for it, “George-”

Before he could stop himself, he was gripping George’s wrist, and George turned to look at him with brows raised in question. Clay searched for George, searched in his eyes for one genuine piece of his best friend, a crack in the mask Clay had forced him to wear.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he says a little breathlessly, and he wished, he wished so badly that he could hug him tightly and beg him not to leave, but he didn’t. Instead, he let go of George’s wrist, and after the moment’s shock had faded, a little smile cracked on George’s face as he said,

“I won’t, Clay.”

Clay believed him, but that didn’t make it any less painful to watch as George melted into the crowd of people walking into the airport. Even as he was long gone, Clay couldn’t find it in himself to pull away from the curb of the airport as he irrationally prayed that George would come running back. Clay didn’t leave until an employee knocked on his window and aggressively pointed at the road.

____________________

The day Clay met George was a memory that was as clear as day.

It had been in the video game store, the very video game store where George made Clay leave the notebook first. Clay had lived in New York City for about seven years since he moved to the city after his parent’s divorce, and it already felt more like home than anywhere else he had been in his life. He greeted Rosa and went right to the new video games section and sifted through games he had already played online and others he hadn’t read the best reviews about. But there was something new about the store that was most intriguing.

In the back of the store was a boy, who looked close to his age, his cheeks pink with cold, scarf wound so many times around his neck that it hid the bottom half of his face. His dark hair was hidden in a stocking cap.

Clay’s eyes instantly lit up once he realized that the boy was holding a very familiar Minecraft handbook in his mittened hands.

“Fellow Minecraft player?” Clay said from behind him, making the poor guy jump and turn around. Wow, he really did have nice eyes.

“Yes,” he said a little nervously in a thick British accent. “I was just looking to see if there were any good tips in here.”

Clay folds his arms across his chest. “And? Are there?”

The stranger clicks his tongue and sets the book back down on the shelf. “Nope. I learned most of these things the hard way, so I wish I would’ve read this a few years ago.”

Clay laughed, hard enough to make Rosa give him a knowing look. Maybe that was what compelled him to say, “hey, I know this might sound super random, but do you want my discord? We could play together, some time.”

There was a momentary look fo shock on the guy’s face before his lips twitched into a shy little smile that Clay would learn by heart. “I’d like that, actually.”

And that was how the friendship began. Clay introduced George to Nick, which was either the best or worst decision of his life. They stayed up playing Minecraft or other games almost every single night. It turns out that George had been in New York to have a college tour of NYU, the college Clay and Nick both ended up at.

Until they were able to meet again, George and Clay brought up their tradition of sending each other polaroid photos. George sent pictures of selfies with his siblings fighting in the background, or sometimes of beautiful sunsets he watched atop his roof. He had promised to bring Clay up there one day.

____________________

It took about twenty minutes of driving for Clay to realize something.

On the dashboard, along with the succulents was something else that certainly hadn’t been there before. Clay pulled the van to the side of the road and gingerly, he inspected further to realize that it was a stack of polaroids. George must’ve left them there when he wasn’t looking.

Clay carded through them to find that there was a small collection that had been taken just within the past few days. The first was from a few days ago, of Patches perched on Clay’s shoulder while Clay was trying to set up the record player George got him for Christmas. The next was of Clay laying on the bed of the van with a peace-sign thrown up in the air. It was dimly lit from the twinkling lights that snaked along the ceiling of the van. Then, the next was of Clay sitting on theroof of the van with a sunset as a backdrop.

The last polaroid was easily Clay’s favorite.

It had been after they had come inside from stargazing, and both were absolutely freezing, so George had picked up the first hoodie he saw and slipped it on, only to realize it was Clay’s. It was big on him, but Clay insisted that he keep it as he looked so happy in it. In the photo, George was holding the George Orwell book he had been reading to Clay, his wide eyes peaking over the top of the book in mild surprise as Clay remembered taking the polaroid camera from the dashboard and snapping the photo of him.

Wait, Clay didn’t remember the picture being so blurry.

He didn’t remember the world being so blurry.

In an instant, Clay realized the polaroid photos had been his breaking point; he was crying, which was an understatement because really he was sobbing. He was sobbing because the one person he needed in the whole world was missing from the passenger’s seat.

His hands trembled so much that he dropped the polaroid picture of George into his lap, and he was sniffling something terrible. He forgot how awful crying felt as he hadn’t done it in over ten years.

Clay was crying because he realized something he should’ve realized so long ago.

He loved George.

He was so in love with him.

So in love with him it was _stupid._

He loved the way George wrote, the way he talked, the way he rambled when he got excited, how his laugh sounded when he laughed really, really hard. He was so in love with the way George looked when he first opened his eyes in the morning, or how soft his voice got when he was tired. But perhaps most of all, Clay loved how George smiled. How his eyes would crease, how his dimples would be clear on his cheeks.

Clay loved George. He loved him, he loved him, he loved him. He wished he kissed him when they were stargazing. Actually, he wished he kissed him when they were first reunited four years ago.

And he had let him go.

Feverishly wiping his tears, Clay set the polaroid photos aside and set his eyes on the road.

He wasn’t going down without a fight, that was for damn sure.


	10. Chapter 10

George discovered that it was easier to pretend that nothing was wrong when he was lost in a sea of strangers. At first, it felt despicable of the universe to send him to a place where everything was normal; George felt like his world was falling apart, so to look around him and see the ceiling still intact felt wrong.

For the first time in weeks, George looked through his missed calls and texts from his mom and dad and sister and brother because there was no Clay to distract him anymore. The messages were like arrow after arrow through his heart, with _George, are you not coming this year?_ sent on December 23 from his sister, and a later message of _wanna FaceTime on Christmas Eve?_ and the final message of _George?_ On December 26. There weren’t anymore after that.

As for his mother, she wasn’t as peaceful. She left message after message accompanying the missed phone calls. George felt like torturing himself, so he decided to listen to them as he waited in the line for airport security. _George, honey, I know we disagree about some things but can’t you at least come home for a few days? We haven’t seen you in months._

 _I’m starting to think you’ll never pick up my calls…_ there was a sad, hallow laugh following that statement. _Even the dog is starting to wonder where you are._

Keeping on a brave face, he stowed his phone away as he scanned his passport and went through security as if he was another calm person in the airport, and not someone who came here to run away from his own unrequited love.

____________________

George didn’t end up getting any form of caffeine before he got on the plane. He was so exhausted, feeling heavy emotions seemed to drain him inside out, but he wanted to close his eyes and sleep when he got on the plane, sleep so he didn’t have to deal with his own overactive mind.

While waiting for the time when he would board the plane, George called Nick and told him everything. Despite Nick’s usual immature shenanigans, he was a very good listener. Nick didn’t sound angry, to George’s surprise, or even shocked at all. He just sounded… kind of sad. Who could blame him?

 _“Could you tell that I was…”_ George had asked, swallowing the last four words.

 _“Yeah,”_ Nick replied in an instant, _“I could.”_

 _I wish you had told me,_ George almost said, _I wish anyone would have told me how hard this was going to be._

To his own surprise, George didn’t cry. Mostly because he didn’t let himself, but also because he knew there would be plenty of time for that when he wasn’t in a public space. He scanned his airplane ticket and walked down the skinny pathway to the plane that would take him far, far away from Clay and all the pain and love that came with him.

He was starting to think that pain and love were two sides to the same coin.

He felt like his body was taking over as opposed to his brain and all of its overthinking as he set his suitcase in the overhead compartment and sat in his seat. He busied himself with a book: the George Orwell book he had been reading to Clay during the road trip. They never got to finish it together.

 _“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for choosing to fly with us,”_ came the monotone voice over the speaker, _“if you will please give us a few moments of attention as we finish boarding- hey, sir, you can’t be here-”_

George glanced upward in surprise at the sudden interruption to the usual monologue about airplane safety, and it seemed that a few other people had caught on as well. George peered over the rows and rows of seats in front of him that slowly were becoming more and more filled until he saw him.

_Him._

There was Clay, _Clay,_ wearing that hoodie George had stolen from him a few days ago, eyes wide and feverishly searching through the aisles of people, and though it was clear he hadn’t slept at all the previous night, he looked beautiful. God, he always did- with him and those green eyes, him and those freckles-

George’s blood ran cold the instant their eyes met. Clay locked eyes with him and a look of utter relief washed over his face before he was muttering a collection of ‘ _excuse me’s_ and pushing past people occupying the remaining space between him and George.

“How did you-” George starts, standing up and staring at Clay with wide eyes, but he cut himself off as he noticed something. There were tears, dribbling down Clay’s face from his bright, clear eyes. He felt like the breath had been nocked out of his lungs.

_I have this weird thing about me that I can’t cry. I haven’t cried since I was ten years old when my parents divorced, and it’s my biggest insecurity._

George remembered reading those words written in Dream’s- Clay’s handwriting. Yet here he was, crying openly, and it was both the most beautiful and horrible thing to have ever happened to George.

“George, please don’t go,” Clay said, and it seemed that people around them picked up on the fact that a Hallmark-worthy scene was likely to occur. “I just- I fought through security because I needed to see you one last time before you left for- for _months._ I couldn’t have that be our last interaction.”

And then, Clay was done slipping past people, and he was standing there, right in front of George. George looked up at him and fought every impulse not to cup his face in his hands and wipe the tears there. Completely breathless, George looks up into his eyes to show that he was listening.

“And- oh my God, George, I’ve been so _stupid._ So stupid!” there was a sad laugh with that and he took a cautious step closer. “How did I not realize that I was- that-” George was afraid of what he was going to say next, because he honestly couldn’t even tell what was going through Clay’s mind right now. If he was angry or sad, he didn’t know.

“I’m in love with you,” Clay blurts out, “I’m _so_ in love with you. I can’t place the exact day I fell for you, but part of me thinks I always have, and, I get it if you don’t really want to see me anymore but I couldn’t have you fly halfway across the world and not… not know that…” Clay gulps as another tear slips from his eyes, “I love you.”

It felt like a dream. Like George was so sleep deprived that he was hallucinating, but as he reached out to grip Clay’s hand, he realized that this was very, very real. He swallows and fights for words to say, but what could he even say? Clay… Clay _loved_ him? So he _hadn’t_ been imagining all those times when he would catch Clay staring, or the soft sound of his voice when it was just the two of them?

It hadn’t all been in his head?

He realized right then that Clay had been wrong yesterday.

They hadn’t fallen in love with the idea of people who didn’t exist.

They had fallen in love, so hard, for each other. They were just too blind to see it.

George hadn’t realized how close he had gotten to Clay until suddenly, he could see every single one of the freckles on his face. They were like little stars in a blank sky.

“I-” George laughed because honestly, he didn’t know what to say. “Clay, I’ve loved you for _years,_ oh my God-”

And without further word, they edged closer and closer until their lips met in the middle.

George could feel Clay’s tears on his face, so he cupped his hands to Clay’s cheeks and wiped the tears for him. It became apparent that neither of them had much kissing experience, but it didn’t matter, because it felt perfect. They kissed each other the way they wished they had years ago, with George on his tip toes, straining to get somewhere close to Clay’s height, so much that his legs trembled and Clay laughed into the kiss before he scooped him up.

They kissed and kissed even as so many people were watching them, but George just couldn’t find it in himself to care as he was literally weightless with this kiss. Clay’s lips were so soft, and he kissed soft, too, but with so much love that George could only reflect it.

Once they kissed each other breathless, they pulled away and looked at each other. George was sitting in Clay’s arms, his hands holding Clay’s face. They were probably both smiling like idiots at each other.

George actually forgot that the rest of the world existed until suddenly, there was clapping, and when George looked around, he noticed that the entire plane was watching them and applauding their little show. His face flushed red and he hid his face in Clay’s neck, but he could feel Clay’s laugh rumble against him as he wrapped his arms tighter around George and spun him around like he was a little kid.

“So, how does it feel, George?” Clay asked him, eyes bright, “you told me that romance isn’t real until the guy chases you from getting on a plane. So, what’s the verdict?”  
George pretends to think about it. “Hm. I have to say, that was very Hallmark of you, Clay, but I’m still not sold on one thing.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” Clay murmurs, though he was already leaning in.

“That kiss… I don’t know, I think we need to do it again. For research purposes?”  
“Research?” Clay hums against his lips, “well, given the fact that a hundred people are currently watching us, and that flight attendant is giving me a dirty look because I’m _really_ not supposed to be on here, we could try it again in the back of the van.”

“In the back of the van?” George squawks at him, “wow, Clay, how _charming_ of you.”

“I can take you somewhere nicer to kiss you,” Clay murmurs as he was already getting George’s luggage down for him, and George just grinned, even as the people around them went back to minding their own business and the flight attendant shot Clay another seething, warning look. A chill runs down George’s spine as he realizes that they weren’t just play-flirting anymore. This was _real._ He could still feel his lips tingling from their kiss.

“Shall we?” Clay asks, offering George his hand. And George takes it.

“We shall,” he responds.

And they left the plane, hand-in-hand, and made their way back to the van which Clay had haphazardly parked in the drop-off zone to which the flight attendant had a field day of yelling at Clay about.

“I thought you said you were going to kiss me in the back of the van,” George says, his feet propped on the dashboard. He had managed to steal Clay’s hoodie again, and he was contently curled up in it as they drove along the highway. In an instant, the van nearly skidded to a stop with how quickly Clay pulled it to the side of the road and turned the car off.

“Clay!” George exclaims, but Clay was already unbuckling his seatbelt at record speed and practically throwing himself in the backseat that George was laughing himself to death. Maybe _he’d_ start wheezing now.

“Get your ass back here,” Clay whines, patting the bed next to him in fervor and motioning for George to hurry up. Yet, once as George sat beside Clay, and they were close again, he felt that nervousness kick in. His heart fluttered to new heights just at the feeling of Clay’s breath on his lips.

“Hi,” George says quietly, eyes flickering from Clay’s lips to his eyes and back down to his lips. It felt a lot more real now that they weren’t caught up in the adrenaline of declaring their love for one another.

“Hi,” Clay whispers back. “You know what’s nice about kissing sitting down?”

George raises a brow. “I don’t like where this is going,” he says questioningly, to which Clay just laughs but says,

“You don’t have to stand on your tip-toes, you little shortie.”

George deadpans and smacks Clay on the arm. “Oh my GOD- you idiot!”

Clay really got a kick out of that. “You were literally shaking from holding yourself up- it was so adorable-”

“It wasn’t- I’m not, I-” George was blushing and stammering so much that Clay just laughed harder and harder, and he looped his arms around George’s waist until their chests were touching and they were close again.

“I love you,” Clay whispers suddenly.

“Yeah yeah,” George whispers back, about to lean in and kiss him again, but Clay was quick to stop him.

“Nope, say it back,” he argues, but the playful glint was clear in his eyes.

“I love you,” George mutters without much fight, and he could feel Clay’s smile as they kissed again, and he didn’t realize how long they had been kissing for until he looked outside to see the sun significantly lower in the sky.

Even so, he didn’t mind laying here, wrapped up with Clay clutching onto him half-asleep, with no excuse other than to be close to him.

George grinned and snapped a quick polaroid photo before he pressed a fond kiss to Clay’s forehead and closed his own eyes. Even if it was the early afternoon, he let the sleep wash over him like a wave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an epilogue of sorts, but don't worry, this isn't the last you'll be seeing of this story :)

Clay discovered that being in love with his best friend was a lot easier than he made it out to be prior to chasing down George’s plane and kissing him.

In fact, he discovered that he’d never been happier in his life.

After falling asleep in each other’s arms in the pullout bed in the back of the van, Clay was the first to wake up. He blinked open his eyes to the sight of George, who was still half-asleep and groaning as Clay was about to move away from him to drive over to somewhere for breakfast, but a hand reached out, grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and tugged him right back down.

“Aw,” Clay coos before he can stop himself as he looked down at George, whose eyes were now a crack open.

“Stay,” George mutters, arms wrapping snuggling around Clay’s middle. Clay laughed as he murmured in the fondest voice,

“you’re actually pretty cuddly, huh?”

George makes a small sound of disapproval. “Don’t tell Sap,” he says into where his face was buried in Clay’s chest.

They stayed like that for a while, and Clay watched as the dark of the early morning was slowly fading to something lighter. It seemed that George had fallen back asleep as he was completely silent and had been for the last thirty minutes. Clay felt perfectly content being awake, and was currently texting Nick who hadn’t gone to sleep yet for some reason. To be fair, it was just barely 6 in the morning where Clay and George were in North Carolina.

 _I’m glad you finally got your shit together,_ Nick texted Clay, to which Clay laughed shortly. _Wanna call?_

 _Sorry, can’t,_ Clay responds, struggling to text with only one hand as George had claimed his other hand in his sleep. It was really adorable, he reached around and enclose his fingers around Clay’s hand, and Clay just didn’t have the heart to take his hand from George’s grasp. It was kind of like trying to move Patches from his lap when she fell asleep there. _I don’t wanna wake George up. Maybe later? After you SLEEP?_

 _SIMP,_ Nick texts back, _what, did George fall sleep on your lap_ 🥺

 _Of couuuuurse not_ , Clay responds.

Clay looks up a little to find that the van was bathed in colors of pink in orange from the front windows in what must be the most beautiful sunrise he’d ever seen. Gently, he went about prodding George from his sleep, which might be the most disheartening thing he’s ever done. “George, George. Hey, George, wake up.”

“Shhh,” George mutters, hand letting go of Clay’s and reaching up to blindly bat at his face. “Just lay down with me, Clay.” And it took every ounce of self-restraint not to do so as George’s voice sounded so sleepy, and so sweet, but Clay was determined to watch this last sunset before he got to his mom’s house.

“Yeah, sure, George,” Clay starts, wrapping his arms around George’s back as if to cuddle back into him, but in an instant, he was hauling the poor guy up from his peaceful slumber, to which George nearly squealed in protest (honestly, there was no “nearly” about it). “Come on, don’t be such an old man. Get up and see the world.”

“Nooo, the world can wait,” George whines as Clay promptly sets him on his feet and walks over to the far side of the van to open the trunk where they could easily crawl onto the roof.

“Come on, I promise you’ll be impressed by this,” Clay insists as he vaulted up onto the roof, causing the van to shake with the movement. And though there was an irked grumble, he found George clambering onto the roof alongside him, settling to sit right beside him so their knees touched.

“Wow,” George whispers, and though George was watching the beautiful, bright pink and orange and yellow sunrise, Clay was watching him. The hues of pink made his eyes glow even brighter than usual. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Yeah, it is,” Clay sighs, very clearly still looking at George, who looked to the side, noticed this, visibly blushed and muttered a quiet “idiot.”

“You can’t even see half these colors,” Clay teases, and George shoots him an unimpressed look. “Shut up. I can see half of them, but even so, I can tell they’re pretty.”

Their hands entwined, and though they shared a fond smile, it was incredible how easy it had become for Clay to reach other to George’s hand and bury it in his own, and kiss each of the knuckles. He did that before they fell asleep last night, he remembered.

“Hey, George, I have an idea for you,” Clay says suddenly. George raises his brows at him in a silent way that Clay knew meant _go on._

Clay promptly faced away from George, took a deep breath, and very suddenly, he just screamed. He could feel George jump from beside him at the sudden loud noise. Clay’s own scream reverberated off the empty valleys and along the deserted highway, and he looked back to George with a proud grin. “You helped me overcome my irrational fear of not being able to cry,” he says in memory of just the previous day when he’d cried his eyes out in the front seat of the van, and again when he confessed his love. Yeah, there was no question that he was surely capable of crying. “So let me help you overcome your irrational fear.” Clay remembered when George wrote about it. _What if when I need to scream, my voice just dies?_ He remembered reading that and realizing how truly thoughtful this mystery notebook person was.

George looked at him, really looked at him, and in his eyes were twin reflections of the beautiful sunset. And so, he turned to face the terrain in front of them, and screamed, loud, not the high-pitched shrieks he provided while playing video games, but a real scream. Just like Clay’s, it boomeranged along the dry land. His voice didn’t so much as crack.

“Well, there you have it,” Clay responds, “you can scream just fine after all.”

“Mhm. I bet if SapNap were here, he’d make some shitty joke about that.”

Clay laughs at the fact that he could _perfectly_ picture that. “Ha, you’re right about that one.”

“Hey, Clay,” comes a timid voice next to him after they stared at the sunset for a few moments longer.

“Yeah?” Clay responds in an equally soft voice.

“Wanna… wanna kiss?”

Clay snorts. “ _Yes,_ George. Oh my God, you’re such a dork.”

“Poggers,” George says back, grinning stupidly, but he was still leaning in closer.

“Nope, that’s it, I revoke your kissing privileges,” Clay says in mock disgust as he puts his finger over George’s lips, but George had the damn _audacity_ to give him the most compelling puppy eyes the world had seen, so naturally, Clay conceded. “Okay, I revoke your kissing privileges after one more kiss.”

That was a big lie, obviously. Even though George was half-asleep and they were still learning how to kiss properly, it was perfect to Clay. The imperfections were what made it feel the most right. The occasional bump of noses that would make them break apart to laugh against each other’s lips but almost immediately resume, or the way George strayed from Clay’s lips and pressed little kisses along his neck, or how Clay had run his hands through George’s hair so much that it was certainly not as it had been before. They kissed until George’s back was to the van and the pink and orange had faded from the sky and gave way to blue. Even then, as Clay pulled his lips away from George’s and watched as his eyes fluttered open, George tutted. His cheeks were still glowing a light pink despite the sky losing its sunrise palette, and his lips were kiss-swollen from however long it was they just kissed for.

“Why’d you stop?” he asked quietly, arms still looped around Clay’s shoulders. Clay felt his face actually heat up at that.

“We need to keep driving,” he starts apologetically, “if we _ever_ want to make it to Florida, because at this rate, we definitely won’t.”

“Hmph, fine,” George gives in, his lips tilting up in a smile, “but you owe me more kisses later.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll hold you to that,” Clay insists as he rolls off of George and gets back in the van. With much drama, George does the same, but despite looking ready to crawl back in bed, he kept Clay company in the front seat and really, really tried to stay awake, but after an hour Clay looked over to find George completely passed out with his face against the window. He laughed. He really was the luckiest guy in the world, wasn’t he?

____________________

By some miracle, they made it to Florida by sunset that day. George slept through about half the day before he woke up and, feeling bad for leaving Clay lonely for that long, George read Clay stories of his choosing for hours until they arrived.

His mother was happy to see him, apparently, as she ran right up to him and gave him a big hug, and George, too.

“You’ve grown up so much these past few months, Clay,” his mother says, and she ruffles a hand through her son’s hair before she looks over to George, who smiles sweetly to her. “You must be George?”

“That’s me,” he says, holding out his hand for her to shake. Instead, she leaned forward and gave him another hug, and Clay didn’t suppress his chuckle at George’s bewildered expression. Clay and his mother had a clear resemblance from their shared green eyes to blonde hair and freckles.

“You have a _wonderful_ accent,” his mom starts, “Clay, why didn’t you tell me he was British? I would’ve had you ask him over so much sooner!”

Clay didn’t remember much after that as he took a shower, changed his clothes, fell onto his bed and fell asleep in an instant. But, when he rose in the morning, he found George in the kitchen, cup of tea held in his hands, talking to his mother as if he had been for hours. Maybe he was. They were talking about music, or something, but Clay wasn’t paying much attention to that. He watched as his mother and boyfriend (?) talked as if they were old friends, and something about the scene made Clay’s heart melt. Even if he wasn’t out to his mom yet, hell, he wasn’t even out to _himself,_ it was nice to know that she got along with George.

The funny thing was that they hadn’t actually established what they were, _officially,_ despite spending a very fair amount of time kissing. Despite practically being a master at it now, knowing just when to duck down and kiss George and successfully fluster him, or when to kiss his cheek or the top of his head, he knew he’d never get rid of those butterflies that fluttered in his stomach, the same butterflies from their first kiss. And now, he had the pleasantry to stare at George without worrying if he caught him staring, because when he did, he loved the blooming blush on his cheeks and the way he’d look away shyly. Sometimes, George would flirt back, and that was always quite a show.

And, by some miracle, they made it back up the coast to New York (there were many more sunrise kisses along the way: actually, Clay nearly fell off the trailer from laughing so hard because George screeched so loudly after Clay beat him at Mario Kart on their Nintendo Switch that a flock of birds a whole mile away were scared off. They didn’t go on the roof anymore after that incident).

One night, Nick, Clay, and George were huddled in George’s new apartment that still had boxes pushed to the sides and a half-assembled bed in his room, watching a movie in the dead of night. There was one week remaining until George left for his semester abroad, which Clay had agreed to fly to Britain and travel around with him for a few days before they officially parted ways for months.

George was tucked between Clay’s legs, his back to Clay’s chest and Clay’s chin resting atop George’s head as they silently watched their movie. _Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back,_ a movie they all could appreciate. Well, not _all_ of them, because Nick was dead asleep, as usual.

“He only ever lasts a few minutes,” George snickers as he points to Nick, who was snoring up a storm.

“That’s what she said."  
“Pfft-”

Then, after giggling and whispering back and forth, they returned to the intense silence of watching the movie, though they both could probably recite the lines at this point.

“Hey, George?”

George tilts his head upward and looks up at Clay, whose face was illuminated by the ghostly lights of the TV. “Yeah?” he whispers back, his finger subconsciously tracing circles on Clay’s bare knee.

“Do you wanna be my boyfriend?”

George choked on a laugh, and Clay gave him an unimpressed expression. “Hey, I’m being serious!”

“I know, I know- it’s just, kind of a funny time to ask, don’t you think?” George must’ve detected the amount of courage Clay had put into that question, so in an instant, he was swiveling around so that he was now facing Clay, his hands cupping his cheeks as he added, “but it’s perfect, Clay. Of course I’ll be your boyfriend.”

Clay tugged him closer until they were tumbling backwards, and Clay’s back was to the carpet (George didn’t have a couch yet), the blankets long gone, but he didn’t need one anyway because he had George hugged to his chest. They kissed, obviously, but Clay missed George’s lips at first because it was pitch dark now that the movie was over, and George laughed at him so hard that they woke Nick up who just said “you’d think you’d have the decency to go to your room to bone.”

They ended up falling asleep like that, George laying on Clay and Nick on George’s bed, and though Clay had a stiff neck for days, it was worth the memories.

As for London, it was a beautiful three days Clay spent there. He made sure that George’s apartment was nice, and tried to find as many excuses for George to come back to New York with him as humanly possible, but unfortunately, they didn’t work. Together, they traveled to Big Ben, and so, so, _so_ many museums but neither of them really got bored. They ate way too much food and stayed up late re-watching Star Wars movies.

“I don’t want you to go,” George admits on the last night, wrapped up in Clay’s shirt that was definitely too long for him and just said “Florida Man” in big print.

“I don’t want to go either,” Clay murmurs, “but we’ll be okay, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” George was quiet after that. Clay could feel him shaking, though, and in worry, he sat up to see George hiding his face behind his hands, and Clay softened.

“Hey, now. No crying yet! We still have a few hours.” George sniffled.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a voice so sad that Clay thought he might actually cry too, “I just… I’m being such a crybaby right now, but I’m really gonna miss you…”

Clay wrapped his arms around George’s shoulders and pressed his cheek to his back in a silent gesture that he wasn’t going anywhere for now. “I love you,” he says against George’s shoulder, and pressed a kiss to the bare skin above the hem of the shirt, “that’s not going to change. We’ll video call every day, we can even set a time for it. And over the weekends, I’ll destroy you at BedWars.”

George laughs, and though it was full of tears and sniffling, it was genuine, and that was enough for Clay.

“We’re going to be okay,” Clay says again, gently tugging George’s face from his hands and wiping the tears for him.

“We’re going to be okay,” George says back.

Clay had plenty of tears too as the next day when George walked him up to the airport, the waterworks came for him, and it was George’s turn to hold Clay close and murmur “we’re going to be okay” into his ear. Clay, through his tears, says it back. And they kiss until Clay’s flight was called for boarding, and though there was a sense of dread of returning to his apartment without George in it, he had no doubt that they would be okay.

(Spoiler alert: they were just fine.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I never thought I would actually finish a story! But here it is, everybody!
> 
> I would like to send a shout out and huge thank you to those of you who left comments on my chapters as I was uploading them. Seriously, you made me smile so much and gave me the motivation to write over 100 pages in a week. You guys give me super powers.
> 
> One more thing! I will be publishing a sequel book that I will update daily (just like this one) until I'm back in school next week, where I'll still probably update daily because I don't sleep.
> 
> Thank you all SO MUCH for reading! I love each and every one of you!


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